[House Hearing, 115 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
EXAMINING THE CONSEQUENCES OF EXECUTIVE BRANCH OVERREACH OF THE
ANTIQUITIES ACT
=======================================================================
OVERSIGHT HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON FEDERAL LANDS
of the
COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
Tuesday, May 2, 2017
__________
Serial No. 115-5
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Natural Resources
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COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES
ROB BISHOP, UT, Chairman
RAUL M. GRIJALVA, AZ, Ranking Democratic Member
Don Young, AK Grace F. Napolitano, CA
Chairman Emeritus Madeleine Z. Bordallo, GU
Louie Gohmert, TX Jim Costa, CA
Vice Chairman Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan,
Doug Lamborn, CO CNMI
Robert J. Wittman, VA Niki Tsongas, MA
Tom McClintock, CA Jared Huffman, CA
Stevan Pearce, NM Vice Ranking Member
Glenn Thompson, PA Alan S. Lowenthal, CA
Paul A. Gosar, AZ Donald S. Beyer, Jr., VA
Raul R. Labrador, ID Norma J. Torres, CA
Scott R. Tipton, CO Ruben Gallego, AZ
Doug LaMalfa, CA Colleen Hanabusa, HI
Jeff Denham, CA Nanette Diaz Barragan, CA
Paul Cook, CA Darren Soto, FL
Bruce Westerman, AR Jimmy Panetta, CA
Garret Graves, LA A. Donald McEachin, VA
Jody B. Hice, GA Anthony G. Brown, MD
Aumua Amata Coleman Radewagen, AS Wm. Lacy Clay, MO
Darin LaHood, IL
Daniel Webster, FL
David Rouzer, NC
Jack Bergman, MI
Liz Cheney, WY
Mike Johnson, LA
Jenniffer Gonzalez-Colon, PR
Jason Knox, Chief of Staff
Lisa Pittman, Chief Counsel
David Watkins, Democratic Staff Director
------
SUBCOMMITTEE ON FEDERAL LANDS
TOM McCLINTOCK, CA, Chairman
COLLEEN HANABUSA, HI, Ranking Democratic Member
Don Young, AK Niki Tsongas, MA
Stevan Pearce, NM Alan S. Lowenthal, CA
Glenn Thompson, PA Norma J. Torres, CA
Raul R. Labrador, ID Ruben Gallego, AZ
Scott R. Tipton, CO Jimmy Panetta, CA
Bruce Westerman, AR A. Donald McEachin, VA
Vice Chairman Anthony G. Brown, MD
Darin LaHood, IL Vacancy
Daniel Webster, FL Raul M. Grijalva, AZ, ex officio
David Rouzer, NC
Jack Bergman, MI
Liz Cheney, WY
Rob Bishop, UT, ex officio
------
CONTENTS
----------
Page
Hearing held on Tuesday, May 2, 2017............................. 1
Statement of Members:
Bishop, Hon. Rob, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Utah.................................................... 7
Prepared statement of.................................... 8
Grijalva, Hon. Raul M., a Representative in Congress from the
State of Arizona........................................... 9
Prepared statement of.................................... 10
Hanabusa, Hon. Colleen, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Hawaii............................................ 4
Prepared statement of.................................... 6
McClintock, Hon. Tom, a Representative in Congress from the
State of California........................................ 2
Prepared statement of.................................... 3
Statement of Witnesses:
Clarke, Kathleen, Director, Utah Public Lands Policy
Coordinating Office, Salt Lake City, Utah.................. 16
Prepared statement of.................................... 17
Questions submitted for the record....................... 19
LePage, Hon. Paul, Governor of the State of Maine, Augusta,
Maine...................................................... 11
Prepared statement of.................................... 13
Questions submitted for the record....................... 14
Supplemental testimony submitted for the record.......... 16
Marshall, Knox, Vice President of Resources, Murphy Timber
Investments LLC, Eugene, Oregon............................ 29
Prepared statement of.................................... 31
St. Clair, Lucas, President, Elliotsville Plantation Inc.,
Portland, Maine............................................ 23
Prepared statement of.................................... 25
Questions submitted for the record....................... 28
Additional Materials Submitted for the Record:
Herbert, Gary R., Governor of the State of Utah, May 1, 2017
Letter to Chairman Bishop and Ranking Member Grijalva...... 66
Kobseff, Michael N., Chair, County of Siskiyou, California
Board of Supervisors, February 14, 2017 Letter to President
Trump...................................................... 58
List of documents submitted for the record retained in the
Committee's official files................................. 69
Moore, Hunter, Natural Resources Policy Advisor to Arizona
Governor Doug Ducey, testimony............................. 67
OVERSIGHT HEARING ON EXAMINING THE CONSEQUENCES OF EXECUTIVE BRANCH
OVERREACH OF THE ANTIQUITIES ACT
----------
Tuesday, May 2, 2017
U.S. House of Representatives
Subcommittee on Federal Lands
Committee on Natural Resources
Washington, DC
----------
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:01 a.m., in
room 1324, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Tom McClintock
[Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
Present: Representatives McClintock, Pearce, Thompson,
Labrador, Tipton, Westerman, LaHood, Bergman; Hanabusa,
Tsongas, Lowenthal, Torres, Gallego, Panetta, McEachin, Brown,
and Grijalva.
Also present: Representatives Gosar, LaMalfa; Huffman, and
Beyer.
Mr. McClintock. The Subcommittee on Federal Lands of the
House Natural Resources Committee will come to order.
The Committee today is meeting to hear testimony on
examining the consequences of executive branch overreach of the
Antiquities Act.
Under Committee Rule 4(f), any oral opening statements at
hearings are limited to the Chairman, the Ranking Minority
Member, and the Vice Chairman. However, I would ask unanimous
consent that the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Full
Committee can be recognized for 5 minutes for an opening
statement.
Without objection, so ordered.
Therefore, I would ask unanimous consent that all other
Members' opening statements be made part of the hearing record
if they are submitted to the Subcommittee Clerk by 5:00 p.m.
today.
Without objection, so ordered.
I would also ask unanimous consent that the following
members of our Committee be allowed to participate in today's
Subcommittee proceedings and sit at the dais and ask questions:
Congressman Gosar, Congressman Cook, Congressman LaMalfa,
Congressman Huffman, and Congressman Beyer.
Without objection, so ordered.
As I said, the Subcommittee on Federal Lands meets to hear
testimony on abuses of the Antiquities Act of 1906, and
possible reforms to prevent such abuses in the future. We will
begin with opening statements, and I will begin.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. TOM McCLINTOCK, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
Mr. McClintock. The Antiquities Act provides the President
the authority to designate national monuments on Federal land
containing ``historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric
structures, and other objects of historic or scientific
interest.''
The law also specified that national monuments ``be
confined to the smallest area compatible with proper care and
management of the objects to be protected.''
Furthermore, the President could only designate national
monuments ``upon the lands owned or controlled by the
Government of the United States.''
The purpose of the Act was to give presidents the ability
to quickly protect archeological sites from looting. In the
original congressional debate over the bill, Congressman
Stevens asked whether this bill could ever be used to lock up
large areas of land as provided under the forest reserve bill.
In response, the bill's sponsor, Congressman Lacey stated,
``Certainly not. The object is entirely different. It is to
preserve these old objects of special interest in the
Southwest, while the other reserves the forests and the water
courses.''
President Theodore Roosevelt first used this authority to
declare 1,200 acres around the Devil's Tower in Wyoming as a
National Monument. Since that time, presidents broadly
interpreted the Antiquities Act to expand both the size and
justifications for national monument designations.
Today, the Subcommittee will hear testimony surrounding the
designation of millions of acres under an authority that limits
them to the smallest area compatible with proper care and
management of the objects to be protected. Indeed, in the last
8 years, the Obama administration used this Act to declare
national monument status over 553.4 million acres of land and
water. That is equivalent to the entire states of Texas,
California, Montana, New Mexico, and Arizona, combined, with an
extra 50,000 square miles to spare.
As we will hear, these designations were often imposed in
spite of local opposition, without consultation with Congress
or the state or local governments affected, and without regard
to the economic damage these designations have had on
surrounding communities. The restrictions on public use,
resort, and recreation under these designations can be severe,
in many cases prohibiting road access to the public, and
imposing specific prohibitions against hunting, fishing, and
other traditional recreational pursuits.
Management of forests within these national monuments is
also often so restricted that forest-thinning projects for
habitat health and fire prevention become impossible. Land set
aside to support financing of public purposes no longer produce
that income. As we will hear today, the economic impacts can
often devastate local communities by shutting down resource
development projects upon which these communities depend.
The Constitution gives to Congress alone the jurisdiction
over public lands. Consistent with this authority, this
Subcommittee serves three over-arching objectives: to restore
public access to public lands; to restore proper management to
public lands; and to restore the Federal Government as a good
neighbor to those communities impacted by public lands. Ongoing
abuses of the Antiquities Act are antithetical to these goals,
and make a mockery of the clear intention of Congress in
originally adopting this Act.
Possible reforms to prevent these abuses include acreage
limitations on this authority and a requirement that local and
state governments be included in the decisions.
It has been falsely asserted in several forums that the
Antiquities Act is what creates national parks. While several
national monuments have later become national parks, that
authority rests entirely with Congress, and for good reason.
While the executive should be able to move swiftly to protect
small archeological sites from imminent threat of looting or
desecration, the decision over whether to set aside vast
portions of land in perpetuity should only be made after the
lengthy debate, public input, and accountability that are the
unique attributes of the legislative branch.
Clearly, this was intended both by the American founders
and by the authors of the Antiquities Act. But, as is often the
case with small grants of power made to the executive, those
grants can gradually expand to absurd overreaches.
The kings of England once seized one-third of the English
countryside as the King's Forests, making them the exclusive
preserves of the government and its favored aristocrats, and
placing them off limits to the common people. America's public
lands are exactly the opposite. They are set aside, in the
words of the original Yosemite charter, ``for the public's use,
resort, and recreation for all time.''
This Subcommittee has become increasingly concerned with
government-imposed restrictions on the public's use, resort,
and recreation of the public lands. Preserving these lands for
future generations does not mean closing them to the current
generation.
[The prepared statement of Mr. McClintock follows:]
Prepared Statement of the Hon. Tom McClintock, Chairman, Subcommittee
on Federal Lands
This Subcommittee has set three over-arching principles for this
Congress: To restore public access to public lands; to restore sound
management to public lands; and to restore the Federal Government as a
good neighbor to local communities directly impacted by public lands.
Perhaps no current law is more antithetical to those goals than the
Antiquities Act. Throughout the Act's 111-year history, presidents have
distorted it from its noble intention of preventing the destruction of
Native American antiquities into a law that allows million-acre land
grabs with little to no public input or support.
In the original congressional debate over this bill, Congressman
Stephens asked whether this bill could ever be used to lock up large
areas of land, like the forest-reserve bill before it. In response, the
bill's sponsor, Congressman Lacey, stated: ``Certainly not. The object
is entirely different. It is to perverse these old objects of special
interests in the Southwest, whilst the other reserves the forests and
the water courses.''
No president strayed further away from this intent than President
Obama, who used the Act to lock up over 553.4 million acres of land and
water. That's equivalent to the entire states of Texas, California,
Montana, New Mexico, and Arizona combined, with an extra 50,000 square
miles to spare. Or, to put it a different way, his total acreage was
almost 25 times the size of the state of Maine. Something I'm sure
Governor LePage finds frightening!
The national monuments the Subcommittee will hear testimony about
today stretch from coast to coast, from the dense forests of central
Maine to the rocky canyons of Utah, but all share one common problem:
The previous administration prioritized legacy building over the lives
and livelihoods of small, rural communities. In many cases, these
designations were excessively large, overly restrictive, overwhelmingly
unpopular, or all of the above!
Perhaps no state is more familiar with the abuses and consequences
of the Antiquities Act than Utah. Both Grand Staircase-Escalante and
Bears Ears were designated in the face of unanimous opposition from the
congressional delegation, the governor, and local counties. In the case
of Grand Staircase, elected officials in Utah found out from the
Washington Post about the designation and watched the President sign
the proclamation in Arizona, not their own state. In Bears Ears, the
administration repeatedly ignored local tribes in Utah who vehemently
opposed this designation and worked tirelessly with Chairman Bishop to
craft an alternative solution. The midnight designation was a slap in
the face to their years of hard work, and a sad reminder of the powers
of out-of-state special interest groups with deep pockets.
In Oregon and my home state of California, President Obama expanded
the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument just 8 days before he left
office. This new, and potentially illegal, expansion makes sound and
scientific management of the land impossible by virtually eliminating
active forest management. If the forests within this National Monument
are not actively managed, then catastrophic wildfire will not be a
matter of ``if,'' but ``when.'' Congress already designated the 40,000
acres of O&C Lands captured by this expansion as land for permanent
forest production and the sustained yield of timber. An executive
proclamation should not, and cannot, over-rule this congressionally
mandated use of the land.
In Maine, President Obama designated the Katahdin Woods and Waters
National Monument over the strong objections of the governor, members
of the congressional delegation, and local residents in surrounding
communities. Mainers have a long history and heritage of responsibly
stewarding their land, while also allowing open and free recreational
access. Considering that the previous landowner, in her quest to create
a National Park, shut down the entire area to hunting and snowmobiling
while also evicting campers and burning their cabins to the ground, I
don't blame Mainers one bit for thinking this National Monument puts
that rich heritage in jeopardy.
These abuses point to a simple truth: that no one person should
have the authority to lock up millions of acres of land with the stroke
of a pen. The public should expect more from the person who holds the
highest elected office in this Nation. They should expect more than one
listening session when a decision affects millions of acres of land.
They should expect their president to listen to them, not out-of-state
special interest groups, on the land management decisions happening in
their backyard. And finally, they should expect, and demand, that
Congress stop the abuses of power and end this authority.
And we will.
I yield back and recognize the Ranking Member for her opening
statement.
______
Mr. McClintock. With that, I now recognize the Ranking
Member for her opening statement.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. COLLEEN HANABUSA, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF HAWAII
Ms. Hanabusa. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Since taking office,
President Trump has issued 29 Executive Orders, the most
attention received by his two attempts to ban Muslims from
entering the country.
Notwithstanding the most relevant to this Committee are his
orders last week calling for a review of monuments established
under the Antiquities Act, acts of presidents, Republican and
Democrats alike. I think a review, if done in good faith, might
actually teach us something about the broad base of support for
national monuments and the Antiquities Act. Instead of
vilifying the Antiquities Act, the tremendous array of
cultural, historical, and natural resources protected for
future generations because of this law should be recognized.
For example, Honouliuli National Monument in Hawaii, where
one of my grandfathers was interned during World War II, serves
as part of our American history and a reminder that American
citizens should never be treated the way so many Japanese-
Americans were at that time. Thanks to President Obama and his
use of the Antiquities Act, this site will be managed and
interpreted by the National Park Service in a manner that
honors the sacrifices and struggles of Asian-Americans unjustly
imprisoned, to ensure their legacy forever remains part of our
national story. It is important to note that my grandfather
made clear to me that in Hawaii it was not only Japanese-
Americans, but also Italian and German-Americans alike, who
were interned.
With the establishment of sites like the World War II Valor
in the Pacific National Monument, the Cesar Chavez National
Monument, the Stonewall National Monument, and the Birmingham
Civil Rights National Monument, thanks to the Antiquities Act,
President Bush and President Obama were able to diversify and
broaden representation across our public lands. These monuments
are about the acknowledgment and inclusion of all Americans,
including veterans and ecosystem advocates. All of these were
possible because of the Antiquities Act.
Also thanks to the Antiquities Act we have the Katahdin
Woods and Waters National Monument in Maine, which we will hear
more about this morning from Lucas St. Clair, the president of
the Elliotsville Plantation. This Monument was a generous gift
to the American people that will protect a majestic national
and natural place and expand opportunities for recreation
activities like hunting, fishing, skiing, and snowmobiling.
Americans support national monuments and the Antiquities
Act. A recent poll found that 80 percent of western voters
support keeping existing monument designations. That is because
these designations tell our American story, protect our most
cherished landscapes and ecosystems, and provide countless
opportunities for outdoor recreation--not to mention the fact
that they drive tourism and are great for the economy.
According to the Outdoor Industry Association, outdoor
recreation generates $887 billion in economic activity and
supports 7.6 million jobs nationwide.
While Secretary Zinke has said that this Executive Order
does not strip any monument of its designation, I am concerned
that this Executive Order and this hearing are the beginning of
future efforts to erode or strip away the authority of the
Antiquities Act. Let me say that, any executive act to abolish
existing monuments will be met with significant opposition from
the American people, similar to many of the President's
signature efforts from the first 100 days of this
Administration.
No President has ever unilaterally revoked a national
monument. An attempt to do so will surely end in court, where
the authority to establish new monuments under the Antiquities
Act has routinely been upheld. Congress, on the other hand,
does have the authority to modify or completely disband
monument boundaries. But even in the current political
landscape, efforts to repeal or modify existing monuments may
have a difficult time getting across the finish line. After
all, our national monuments are popular, and will not go down
without a fight.
I recognize that there are concerns with the designation
process for some monuments, but I do not think that gives us
license to cause or revoke existing monuments or gut the
Antiquities Act itself. I look forward to hearing today's
testimony, and with that I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Hanabusa follows:]
Prepared Statement of the Hon. Colleen Hanabusa, Ranking Member,
Subcommittee on Federal Lands
Within the first 100 days of the Trump administration, calling out
previous uses of the Antiquities Act as executive overreach or abuse is
a serious case of the pot calling the kettle black.
Since taking office, President Trump has issued (29) Executive
Orders, including attempts to ban Muslims from entering the country,
scale back national efforts to address the causes and effects of man-
made climate change and even punish municipal governments for local
decisions on how best to police their own communities.
After all that, the President initiated a review of national
monuments established under the Antiquities Act last week. I actually
think that a review--if done in good faith--may actually teach this new
administration about the broad base of support for national monuments
and the Antiquities Act.
Instead of vilifying the Antiquities Act, the tremendous array of
cultural, historical and natural resources protected for future
generations because of this law should be recognized. For example,
Honouliuli National Monument in Hawaii, where one of my grandfathers
was interned during World War II, serves as part of our American
history and a reminder that American citizens should never be treated
the way so many Japanese-Americans were at that time. Thanks to
President Obama and his use of the Antiquities Act, this site will be
managed and interpreted by the National Park Service in a manner that
honors the sacrifice and struggle of the Asian-Americans unjustly
imprisoned and ensures their legacy forever remains part of our
national story.
With the establishment of sites like Cesar Chavez National
Monument, Stonewall National Monument and Birmingham Civil Rights
National Monument, thanks to the Antiquities Act, President Obama was
able to diversify and broaden representation across our public lands.
These monuments are about the acknowledgement and inclusion of ALL
Americans. This was possible because of the Antiquities Act.
Also thanks to the Antiquities Act we have the Katahdin Woods and
Waters National Monument in Maine, which we will hear more about this
morning from Lucas St. Clair, the president of Elliotsville Plantation.
This monument was a generous gift to the American people that will
protect a majestic natural place and expand opportunities for
recreation activities like hunting, fishing, skiing and snowmobiling.
Americans support national monuments and the Antiquities Act. A
recent poll found that 80 percent of Western voters support keeping
existing monument designations.
That's because these designations tell our American story, protect
our most cherished landscapes and ecosystems, and provide countless
opportunities for outdoor recreation--not to mention the fact that they
drive tourism and are great for the economy. According to the Outdoor
Industry Association, outdoor recreation generates $887 billion in
economic activity and supports 7.6 million jobs nationwide.
While Secretary Zinke has said that this ``Executive Order does not
strip any monument of a designation,'' I am concerned that this
Executive Order and this hearing are merely window dressing for future
efforts to erode or strip away the authority of the Antiquities Act.
Let me say that, any executive action to abolish existing monuments
will be met with significant opposition from the American people,
similar to many of the President's signature efforts from the first 100
days of this administration. No President has ever unilaterally revoked
a national monument--an attempt to do so will surely end in court where
the authority to establish new monuments under the Antiquities Act has
routinely been upheld.
Congress, on the other hand, does have the authority to modify or
completely disband monument boundaries. But even in the current
political landscape, efforts to repeal or modify existing monuments
will have a difficult time getting across the finish line. Despite the
narrative of my Republican colleagues, our national monuments are
popular and will not go down without a fight.
I recognize that there ARE concerns with the designation process
for some monuments, but I do not think that gives us license or cause
to revoke existing monuments or gut the Antiquities Act itself.
I look forward to hearing today's testimony.
______
Mr. McClintock. The Chair is now pleased to recognize the
Chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, Congressman
Rob Bishop of Utah, for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. ROB BISHOP, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS
FROM THE STATE OF UTAH
Mr. Bishop. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Everyone knows that I
really don't like to give opening statements at these hearings,
but I felt compelled today to speak out about the
misrepresentations that have surrounded the so-called Bears
Ears National Monument. Never in my years of Congress have I
seen such a concerted effort to suppress the voices of local
tribes by powerful, deep-pocketed opponents. No local tribe in
San Juan County, Utah, where the Monument is located, supported
this designation. But most do not know this, because it is
barely reported.
When my staff has called to correct reporters on their
misrepresentation, they have been told that the voices of these
local Navajos are unpersuasive. Some members of this Committee
have called Rebecca Benally, the Navajo woman elected to
represent this area as a County Commissioner, a token Navajo
who opposes the designation. I cannot even begin to describe
how disrespectful and demeaning this dismissive language was to
her, and to the local people and the tribes of this area.
So, today, instead of using my time to give an opening
statement, I would like to read some comments from local tribes
in Utah, so that people will finally be able to hear them and
listen to them.
The Aneth Chapter of the Navajo, which is the only Navajo
chapter made up of tribal members exclusively from Utah, and
represents 50 percent of the Navajo in San Juan County, stated
in a resolution, ``The National Monument would prevent San Juan
County Navajos and Ute Tribes from using the lands for the
practicing of ceremonies, spiritual rejuvenation, gathering of
herbs, firewood, cedar poles/posts, hunting, and caretaking of
sacred places.''
In a unanimously passed resolution from the Blue Mountain
Dine' Community, they stated that they ``specifically disclaim
the notion put forward by various environmental groups that
their creation, the Dine Bikeyah, speaks for all local
Navajos--they do not.'' They went on to say, ``We respect their
intentions and their efforts, but we disagree that the creation
of an Inter-Tribal National Monument will be in the best
interests and welfare of not only local Navajo people, but of
all locals who love the land of their heritage.''
After the designation, Suzette Morris, a Ute Mountain Ute
member, said, ``We have cemeteries up there, and I don't want
our ancestors to be put in museums. We all have a fight, and we
all are going to continue to fight for this to be rescinded.''
At our PLI hearing last September, Commissioner Benally
stated, ``Bears Ears National Monument campaign is a cynical
political stunt that, if successful, will deny grassroots Utah
Navajos access to their sacred and spiritual grounds.
Traditional Utah Navajo people depend on that land for their
necessities of life: to gather medicinal plants, firewood,
pinon nuts, as well as to hunt and practice sacred
ceremonies.''
``Traditional Utah Navajo people are not conspiring with
lawyers in boardrooms in Salt Lake and San Francisco.
Traditional Utah Navajo people are not collecting $20 million
from the Hewlett Packard Foundation and Leonardo DiCaprio to
sponsor this toxic divide-and-conquer campaign. Traditional
Utah Navajo people are not magazine environmentalists, but are
real stewards of the land, whose interests will be destroyed by
a Bears Ears National Monument.''
``Grassroots Utah Navajo people do not support this effort
to convert our sacred lands into a Federal designation that
will subject them to micromanagement by bureaucrats in
Washington, DC.''
And finally, a local group known as the Stewards of San
Juan, who represent diverse interests including tribal
representation, in their letter to Secretary Zinke stated the
following, ``The majority of Navajo and Ute residents in San
Juan County overwhelmingly oppose the monument designation, in
contrast to out-of-county and out-of-state tribes who know very
little of this area, and will simply not be affected by this
monument. It is appalling that non-local voices have drowned
out those who treasure this land the most.''
They continued, ``This monument was designated in order to
appease outside special interest groups. It was done without a
robust consultation with the stakeholders who actually live in
San Juan County. Voices of life-long residents and tribal
members have been, and continue to be, blatantly ignored. Non-
government organizations such as the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal
Coalition, Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, and Conservation
Lands Foundation should never have power to trump sovereign
state rights, nor duly elected officials, no matter how big
their wallets are. When the former Interior Secretary visited
our state, she prioritized her time to meet with those outside
groups and those that would only be marginally affected by the
monument itself.''
I hope those who are listening today will remember those
voices. Those are the voices that have been excluded from the
conversation. Those are the ones President Obama ignored when
he designated Bears Ears National Monument. And it is about
time those voices were actually heard. I yield back.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Bishop follows:]
Prepared Statement of the Hon. Rob Bishop, Chairman, Committee on
Natural Resources
Anybody who knows me knows that I typically don't like to give
opening statements at these hearings. But I felt as though I must speak
out at today's hearing about the misrepresentations surrounding Bears
Ears National Monument.
Never in my 14 years of Congress have I seen such a concerted
effort to suppress the voices of local tribes by such powerful, deep-
pocketed opponents. No local tribe in San Juan County, Utah, where the
National Monument is located, supported this designation. But most do
not know this, because it is barely reported.
When my staff has called to correct reporters on their
misrepresentations, they've been told the voices of these local Navajo
are ``unpersuasive.''
Members of this Committee have called Rebecca Benally, the Navajo
woman elected to represent this area as a County Commissioner, a
``token'' Navajo who opposes the designation.
I cannot even begin to describe how disrespectful and demeaning
this dismissive language is to her, and to the local people and tribes
in this area.
So, today, instead of using this time to give my opening statement,
I'd like to read some comments from the local tribes in Utah, so that
people will finally listen to them.
The Aneth Chapter of Navajo, which is the only Navajo chapter made
up of tribal members exclusively from Utah and represents 50 percent of
the Navajo in San Juan County, stated in a resolution that the National
Monument would prevent ``San Juan County Navajos and Ute Tribes from
using the lands for the practicing of ceremonies, spiritual
rejuvenation, gathering of herbs, firewoods, cedar poles/posts,
hunting, and caretaking of sacred places.''
In a unanimously passed resolution from the Blue Mountain Dine'
Community, they stated that they ``specifically disclaim the notion put
forward by various environmental groups that their creation, the Dine
Bikeyah, speaks for all local Navajos--they do not. We respect their
intentions, and their efforts, but we disagree that the creation of an
Inter-Tribal National Monument will be in the best interests and
welfare of not only local Navajo people, but of all locals who love the
land of their heritage.''
After the designation, Suzette Morris, a Ute Mountain Ute member,
stated, ``We have cemeteries up there and I don't want our ancestors to
be put in museums'' and ``We all have a fight and we all are going to
continue to fight for this to be rescinded.''
At our PLI hearing last September, Commissioner Benally stated,
``Bears Ears National Monument campaign is a cynical political stunt
that, if successful, will deny grassroots Utah Navajos access to their
sacred and spiritual grounds. Traditional Utah Navajo people depend on
that land for their necessities of life: to gather medicinal plants,
fire wood, pinon nuts, as well as to hunt and practice sacred
ceremonies. Traditional Utah Navajo people are not conspiring with
lawyers in board rooms in Salt Lake City and San Francisco. Traditional
Utah Navajo people are not collecting $20 million from the Hewlett and
Packard foundations and Leonardo DiCaprio to sponsor this toxic divide-
and-conquer campaign. Traditional Utah Navajo people are not magazine
environmentalists but are real stewards of the land whose interests
will be destroyed by a Bears Ears National Monument. Grassroots Utah
Navajo people do not support this effort to convert our sacred lands
into a Federal designation that will subjugate them to micromanagement
by bureaucrats in Washington, DC.''
And finally, a local group known as the Stewards of San Juan, who
represent a diverse set of interests in the County and have local
tribal representation on their Board of Directors, sent a letter to
Secretary Zinke stating the following: ``The majority of Navajo and Ute
residents in San Juan County overwhelmingly oppose the monument
designation, in contrast to out-of-county/state tribes who know very
little of this area and will simply not be affected by this monument.
It is appalling that non-local voices have drowned out those who
treasure this land the most.''
They continued that: ``This monument was designated in order to
appease outside special interest groups. It was done WITHOUT a robust
consultation with the stakeholders who actually live in San Juan
County. Voices of life-long residents and tribal members have been, and
continue to be, blatantly ignored. Non-government organizations such as
the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition, Southern Utah Wilderness
Alliance, and Conservation Lands Foundation should never have the power
to trump sovereign state rights, nor duly elected officials, no matter
how big their wallets are. When the former Interior Secretary visited
our state, she prioritized her time to meet with these outside groups
and those that would only be marginally affected by the monument.''
I hope that those listening today will remember these voices, the
ones that have been excluded from this conversation and the ones that
President Obama ignored when he designated Bears Ears National
Monument.
______
Mr. McClintock. The Chair is now pleased to recognize the
Ranking Member of the House Natural Resources Committee,
Congressman Grijalva of Arizona, for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. RAUL M. GRIJALVA, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF ARIZONA
Mr. Grijalva. I ask unanimous consent to submit my
statement for the record. And also to submit a letter from 450
organizations and millions of members to those organizations
across the country to President Trump and Secretary Zinke and
Secretary Ross, expressing their unified opposition to any
efforts to remove or decrease protections of any national
monument. I would like to enter those two in the record, my
statement and the letter.
Mr. McClintock. Without objection.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Grijalva follows:]
Prepared Statement of the Hon. Raul M. Grijalva, Ranking Member,
Committee on Natural Resources
Since Congress passed the Antiquities Act in 1906, giving
presidents the authority to set aside Federal lands for their historic
and scientific interest, 16 of 19 presidents have done so.
That list of monuments includes places as diverse as the Grand
Canyon in my home state of Arizona, to the Birmingham Civil Rights
National Monument in Alabama. That enduring legacy is why monuments are
so popular. A recent Colorado College poll found that 80 percent of
western voters support existing monument designations.
You can't find a more popular government program. And yet we're
here today because my colleagues in the Majority want to destroy the
law and potentially even abolish existing national monuments.
The American people want a strong economy, well-preserved public
lands and plenty of natural open spaces. Contrary to what you hear from
my Republican colleagues, we can and we will do all three. We know that
national monuments provide all of those things. Just last week, the
Outdoor Retailers Association released a new report that found outdoor
recreation supports more than 7.6 million American jobs and leads to
$887 billion in direct consumer spending.
That's why the President's Executive Order to ``review'' some
national monument designations was so unusual and so upsetting. One
would have expected a self-proclaimed business expert to recognize the
tremendous economic potential of conserving our public lands, but it
appears he does not.
If President Trump insists on managing our national parks and
monuments like he managed his business ventures, he will bankrupt
America's outdoor legacy and the many local economies and small
businesses that depend on public lands. The sheer diversity of
historic, cultural, and natural treasures that have been protected by
the Antiquities Act is the primary reason local communities, from Maine
to Hawaii, oppose Trump's Executive Order and view an attack on one
national monument as an attack on them all.
As we saw with the planning process for Bears Ears, national
monuments are established after years of close Federal consultation
with multiple local stakeholders. After it became clear that the
legislative effort to protect this area fell short, overwhelming tribal
support for the designation became evident. Thirty Native American
tribes--including the Hopi Tribe, the Navajo Nation, the Ute Mountain
Ute Tribe, Pueblo of Zuni and the Ute Indian Tribe--support the
presidential proclamation.
Elections have consequences, and if President Trump has no interest
in joining the long line of his predecessors who identified and
preserved new national monuments, that is his decision. If the only
monuments Donald Trump wants are hotels, so be it. But the national
monuments established by his predecessors are not subject to Donald
Trump's whims. Attempting to wipe national monuments off the map with
the stroke of a pen would be illegal and unpopular, and this review
will show as much.
No President has attempted to revoke a national monument--for good
reason. Congress has not delegated the authority to rescind a national
monument to the President. Only Congress can reverse a national
monument designation.
This hearing is likely the start of a prolonged debate over the
future of the Antiquities Act--a law signed by President Roosevelt, who
once said that ``natural resources must be used for the benefit of all
our people, and not monopolized for the benefit of a few.'' Without
that wisdom and foresight, who knows what our system of public lands
would look like today.
The Antiquities Act, national monuments and our public lands have
long endured attacks from extraction companies and their allies in the
White House and Congress. Industry railed against Roosevelt's
designation of Grand Canyon National Monument--it is now one of our
most cherished public places.
Sometimes it takes leadership and vision to prioritize long-term
conservation of our most treasured resources, over the allure of short-
term economic gains. That's exactly why the Antiquities Act is so
important. It allows the President to put preservation over profits,
something that Congress isn't always able or even willing to do.
When President Trump and House Republicans seek to destroy the
Antiquities Act and the special places it has protected, they place
themselves squarely on the wrong side of history. Those of us who
support monuments and the Act intend to prove that.
______
Mr. Grijalva. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. McClintock. The gentleman yields back?
Mr. Grijalva. I yield back, sorry.
Mr. McClintock. Very well. That concludes the opening
statements, and we will now hear from our witnesses. I want to
remind them that, under our Committee Rules, oral statements
are limited to 5 minutes, but your full statements will be
included in the Committee record.
The microphones are not automatic. You will need to press
the on button when you begin your testimony. We have a helpful
lighting system to keep you within the 5-minute guardrails. At
1 minute the light will turn yellow, and at red it means we
have all stopped listening, so you might as well stop talking.
So, I thank you all for being here today, and the Committee
is honored to have with us as our first witness, the governor
of the state of Maine, the Honorable Governor LePage.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. PAUL LePAGE, GOVERNOR OF THE STATE OF
MAINE, AUGUSTA, MAINE
Governor LePage. Good morning, Chairman McClintock, Ranking
Member Hanabusa--sorry if I don't pronounce your names
correctly--Chairman Bishop, Ranking Member Grijalva, and
distinguished members of the House Subcommittee on Federal
Lands. I appreciate your invitation to address the Committee
today.
I would like to take this valuable opportunity to share the
concerns of myself and most Maine citizens with regard to the
recent designation of the Katahdin Woods and Waters National
Monument in northern Maine by former President Obama. I hope my
testimony and recommended changes to the Antiquities Act would
be beneficial to the Committee's review of this law, as well as
to the American people.
Maine has a long history of prudent stewardship of its
forest resources with minimal Federal assistance. This is
because Maine citizens and landowners show great respect for
our natural resources, and they understand the importance of
conserving it for future generations. Our state is committed to
supporting the forest products industry, while at the same time
strategically conserving valuable tracts of land.
Maine State Parks have been an excellent example of
conserving land, while also balancing commercial needs,
recreation, and resource values. Mainers understand the
benefits of our 17 million acres of forest to our economy, and
we have historically supported the industries that rely on this
land without interference from the Federal Government.
That is why it should be no surprise that the designation
of this Monument on a former working forest by former President
Obama is very concerning to Maine residents living in the area
and around the state. The National Park Service seems to
blatantly disregard key indicators of this opposition.
In 2015, three local communities held non-binding
referendums to measure the support for a national park in the
area. All three of these communities voted overwhelmingly
against it. East Millinocket voted 63 percent to 37 percent
against it. Medway voted 71 percent to 29 percent against it.
Patten voted 70 percent to 30 percent against it.
The Quimby family, who owned much of this cutover
forestland that was proposed for a national park then
immediately moved to plan B, which was to lobby Washington, DC,
for the designation of a national monument instead.
In response to this change of tactic, the Maine Legislature
in 2015 enacted bipartisan legislation which I submitted
requiring legislative approval for a national monument
designation in Maine. Unfortunately, the former president and
the National Park Service did not let these facts get in the
way. Instead, they sided with special interest groups over the
views of the Maine people and a State law.
The only major selling point to attracting visitors to this
newly established National Monument is the view of Mount
Katahdin. This is somewhat ironic, because Mount Katahdin is
already under conservation in Maine's premiere Baxter State
Park, which I would argue is one of the greatest wilderness
parks east of the Rocky Mountains.
This beautiful park has some interesting history. Former
Maine Governor, Percival Baxter, purchased Mount Katahdin and
the land around it, then donated it to the state of Maine in
1931, with the condition that it be kept forever wild. Baxter
State Park has held to that condition. It is now over 200,000
acres in total size, and is located just west of the designated
Monument. Governor Baxter was a strong opponent of the Federal
Government controlling land in the Katahdin region, and for
good reason.
Baxter State Park can support its current level of use,
while still being able to preserve its mandated mission of
protecting the forest resource. I fear that if the visitors of
Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument become uninspired
by this portion of cutover forestland, there will be an
unmanageable surge of demand to Baxter State Park.
Not long after the former president designated the National
Monument, Maine residents started to feel negative effects of
having the Federal Government as their new master. The National
Park Service re-decked the bridge, which has crossing rights
over with little or no notice to the bridge owners. The
National Park Service also conducted culvert work on some roads
without sufficient notice to the public, causing long delays
for some logging trucks. There have also been reports of near
collisions between passenger cars and timber trucks in this
area. This land does not have the adequate infrastructure to
meet the needs of commercial vehicles and visitor traffic.
Another impact by the monument designation is the loss of
connectivity to ATV trails in the area. My administration is
working with ATV clubs and private landowners to remedy this
issue quickly.
I will answer questions at your request.
[The prepared statement of Governor LePage follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Paul LePage, Governor of the State of Maine
Chairman McClintlock, Ranking Member Hanabusa and distinguished
members of the House Subcommittee on Federal Lands, I appreciate your
invitation to address the Committee today.
I would like to take this valuable opportunity to share the
concerns of myself and most Maine citizens with regard to the recent
designation of the Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument in
northern Maine by former President Obama. I hope my testimony and
recommended changes to the Antiquities Act will be beneficial to the
Committee's review of this law, as well as the American People.
Maine has a long history of prudent stewardship of its forest
resources with minimal Federal assistance. This is because Maine
citizens and landowners show great respect for our natural resources,
and they understand the importance of conserving it for future
generations. Our state is committed to supporting the forest products
industry, while at the same time strategically conserving valuable
tracts of land. Maine's State Parks have been an excellent example of
conserving land, while also balancing commercial needs, recreation and
resource values.
Mainers understand the benefits of our 17 million acres of forests
to our economy, and we have historically supported the industries that
rely on this land without interference from the Federal Government.
That is why it should be no surprise that the designation of this
Monument on a former working forest by former President Obama is very
concerning to Maine residents living in this area and around the state.
The National Park Service seemed to blatantly disregard key indicators
of this opposition.
In 2015, three local communities held non-binding referendums to
measure the support for a National Park in the area. All three of these
communities voted overwhelmingly against it. East Millinocket voted
63%-37%, or 320-191 against; Medway voted 71%-29%, or 252-102 against;
and Patten voted 70%-30%, or 121-53 against Federal control of state
land.
The Quimby family, who owned much of this cutover forestland that
was proposed for a National Park, then immediately moved to Plan B,
which was to lobby Washington, DC for the designation of a National
Monument instead. In response to this change of tactic, the Maine
Legislature in 2016 enacted bipartisan legislation--which I submitted--
requiring legislative approval for a National Monument designation in
Maine. Unfortunately, the former President and the National Park
Service didn't let these facts get in the way. Instead, they sided with
special-interest groups over the views of most Maine people and a state
law.
The only major selling point to attracting visitors to this newly
established National Monument is the view of Mt. Katahdin. This is
somewhat ironic because Mt. Katahdin is already under conservation in
Maine's premier Baxter State Park, which I would argue is one of the
greatest wilderness parks east of the Rocky Mountains. This beautiful
park has some interesting history.
Former Maine Governor Percival P. Baxter purchased Mt. Katahdin and
land around it, then donated it to the state of Maine in 1931 with the
condition that it be kept forever wild. Baxter State Park has held to
that condition. It is now over 200,000 acres in total size and is
located just west of the designated Monument. Governor Baxter was a
strong opponent of the Federal Government controlling land in the
Katahdin region--and for good reasons.
Baxter State Park can support its current level of use, while still
being able to preserve its mandated mission of protecting the forest
resource. I fear that when the visitors to the Katahdin Woods and
Waters National Monument become uninspired by its portions of cutover
forestland, there will be an unmanageable surge of demand to Baxter
State Park.
Not long after the former President designated the Monument, Maine
residents started to feel the negative effects of having the Federal
Government as their new master. The National Park Service re-decked a
bridge, which it has crossing rights over, with little or no notice to
the owner of the bridge.
The National Park Service also conducted culvert work on some roads
without sufficient notice to the public, causing long delays for some
logging trucks. There have also been reports of near collisions between
passenger cars and timber trucks in the area. This land does not have
adequate infrastructure to meet the needs of commercial vehicles and
visitor traffic.
I expect the $40 million endowment offered by the Quimby family
will be spent much faster than expected. As a comparison, Acadia
National Park in Maine had a deferred maintenance backlog in 2015 of
over $60 million which has already completely burnt flat back in 1948.
Another impact by the monument designation is the loss of
connectivity for ATV trails in the area. My administration is working
with ATV clubs and private landowners to remedy this issue as quickly
as possible.
I believe, along with many other Maine residents, that former
President Obama never should have designated this area as a National
Monument. The original intent of the Antiquities Act was to ``reserve
the smallest area compatible with the proper care and management'' of
the land. Further, it was intended to protect endangered areas and
artifacts that were immediately threatened. This cutover forestland was
not worthy of any such designation--I believe it was simply the product
of Washington politics.
I would like to respectfully offer some recommendations to this
Committee as it reviews the Antiquities Act. I believe the law should
be amended to require local approval before the President can
unilaterally designate a National Monument. This support should include
approvals from the state's governor and legislature.
There should also be clear evidence that such a designation is
needed to protect endangered areas or areas of historic or scientific
interest, which is what the original purpose of the Antiquities Act
was. These kinds of checks and balances will ensure a good relationship
between states and the Federal Government.
In conclusion, I hope the issues I have raised today are helpful to
Committee members during your review of the Antiquities Act. I would be
pleased to answer any questions the Committee may have.
______
Questions Submitted for the Record to Hon. Paul R. LePage, Governor of
Maine
Questions Submitted by the Subcommittee on Federal Lands
Question 1. Do you think the National Park Service has the adequate
expertise to manage this land, which has historically been a working
forest and requires active management to maintain its health and
resiliency in the face of wild fires, insects, and disease?
Answer. I do not believe that the National Park Service (NPS) has
the adequate expertise to manage this land which was a former working
forest. The state of Maine and private landowners have a better
understanding of how to properly maintain our forest and protect them
from wildfires, insects and diseases.
The state currently has over 800,000 acres of fee ownership
predominately in forestland. These lands are dedicated to specific uses
with about 100,000 acres dedicated to wildlife management, 94,000 acres
dedicated to ecological reserves, 85,000 acres of developed parks,
430,000 acres of multiple use forests dedicated to low impact and
backcountry recreation--and the remainder is in water, wetlands, steep
areas and very rough terrain.
As I mentioned during the hearing, I would support having the state
manage this land. With the state's expertise in managing forestland for
multiple uses and the proximity of about 10,000 acres of such land
adjacent to the Monument, there exists a tremendous opportunity for the
state to enhance the usefulness of the Monument land to Maine and the
Nation.
As the Committee knows, forest fires are a major concern to the
management of forests. The National Interagency Fire Center has
statistics to show that in 2016 the total number of state jurisdiction
fires was 40,705 and Federal jurisdiction fires were 27,038. However,
the amount of state jurisdiction acreage burned was 1,678,538 compared
to 3,831,457 acres burned under Federal jurisdiction. These stats show
that states do a much better job protecting their forest land.
Management of this land by the state could help to further protect this
land from forest fires.
Maine is also threatened by the spruce budworm which will be
entering Maine from our northern border with Canada in 3-5 years. I saw
firsthand the devastation from the last outbreak in the 1970s-1980s
which killed millions of acres of spruce-fir forests and cost the Maine
economy hundreds of millions of dollars. In order to combat this insect
private landowners and the state need to harvest as many of these
species of trees as possible before they are killed. I am afraid that
these species within the Monument will suffer devastating losses when
the Spruce Budworm takes full grip in Maine because timber harvesting
is prohibited within the Monument. The Maine Forest Service and private
landowners are well aware of this upcoming epidemic and are much better
prepared to handle it than the NPS.
The state of Maine has a proven record of being good stewards of
our natural resources. This land could be managed by the state in a way
that conserves valuable areas while also increasing opportunities for
timber harvesting and recreational activities. The National Park
Service would not be able to manage it in this way.
Question 2. If the state managed this land, how much would be open
to recreational activities such as hunting or snowmobiling?
Answer. All of it with the exception of any land that may be
subject to deed restrictions, and any areas determined by management
planning to require special protection. The land would be managed to
allow for both commercial harvesting and public recreation.
The state would immediately move to restore the many miles of
snowmobile and ATV trails that were eliminated when the Quimby family
purchased the land. I have attached a map which clearly shows the
snowmobile and ATV trails which were eliminated when the Quimby family
took over the land and also the areas where hunting was eliminated. I
have also attached a letter from the Maine Professional Guides
Association with their concerns that the Park System is not ``guide
friendly.'' The letter goes on to say ``. . . the promised economic
benefit from the new Monument will not be accruing to our member's
businesses in the short term even after the issue was brought up in an
open public meeting.'' Attached please also find correspondence from
constituents expressing their concerns with a national park or monument
in northern Maine.
Questions Submitted by Rep. Hanabusa
Question 1. Can you confirm the percentage of Maine 's income based
on tourism?
Answer. The estimated percentage of Maine's income based on tourism
was about 6.6 percent in 2016. Total earnings supported by tourism was
about $2.6 billion and the total earnings by place of work was about
$39 billion. I have attached some supporting documents showing that
about \2/3\ of visitor spending is along the coast of Maine. I believe
that even with the designation of the Katahdin Woods and Waters
National Monument it will be difficult to attract those coastal
visitors to northern Maine.
Question 2. Please explain the type of timber harvesting activity
authorized in Baxter State Park and what percentage of the 200,000
acres it entails. Please include a description of active timber sales
and forest management projects.
Answer. Governor Baxter decided late in the acquisition of the park
to include an area for timber harvesting. His allowance for timber
harvesting coincided with his acquisition of forestland that supported
mature timber. About 14 percent of the Park is available for harvesting
with such activity located in the northwest corner.
Simply put, harvest levels on Baxter State Park are sustainable
indefinitely with entries to harvesting on the same area done
infrequently. Forest management relies on timber harvesting to perform
all cultural work. Natural regeneration is solely relied on and no
chemical methods are used to control vegetation issues. The harvesting
vendor or contractor markets the wood to various mills and pays Baxter
State Park at a negotiated price. The contractor also builds and
maintains the roads used for harvesting purposes.
Question 3. Are hunting and fishing allowed in Baxter State Park?
Answer. Hunting and trapping is allowed on 54,682 acres which is
approximately 26 percent of the park.
*****
[The following documents were submitted as attachments to Governor
LePage's responses. These documents are part of the hearing record and
are being retained in the Committee's official files:]
-- Letter dated May 24, 2017 from Governor LePage to Secretary
Ryan Zinke, Department of the Interior
-- ``What Maine Has Lost,'' Map of Katahdin Woods and Waters
National Monument
-- Letter dated May 22, 2017 from the Maine Professional Guides
Association to Governor LePage.
-- Correspondence from constituents expressing their concerns with
a national park or monument in northern Maine.
______
Supplemental Testimony from Governor LePage Submitted for the Record
Dear Chairman McClintock and Ranking Member Hanabusa,
I greatly appreciated the invitation extended by your Committee to
me to present testimony during the ``Examining the Consequences of
Executive Branch Overreach of the Antiquities Act'' on May 2, 2017. The
hearing was a great opportunity for members of the Committee to hear
firsthand how some recent National Monument designations by former
President Obama have negatively affected states around the country. I
applaud your efforts to review the Antiquities Act and to consider
reforms which will ensure the integrity of the law. I encourage the
Committee to seriously consider reforms that will ensure stakeholder
input is considered by the President.
I would like to address a statement during the hearing from Lucas
St. Clair who I believe misrepresented the outreach extended to me. My
office cannot find any written correspondence from him addressed to me
inviting my input on the consideration of a national monument in
northern Maine. He did meet with one of my staff members, but as a
courtesy he should have asked for the sitting Governor's opinion.
______
Mr. McClintock. Great. Governor LePage, thank you again for
your testimony and for being here today.
The Chair is now pleased to recognize Ms. Kathleen Clarke,
Director of the Utah Public Lands Coordinating Office.
STATEMENT OF KATHLEEN CLARKE, DIRECTOR, UTAH PUBLIC LANDS
POLICY COORDINATING OFFICE, SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH
Ms. Clarke. Thank you, Chairman Bishop, Chairman
McClintock, Ranking Members Hanabusa and Grijalva, members of
the Committee. Thank you for this opportunity to speak to you
today about national monuments, clearly a subject of intense
and emotional discussion.
Specifically, I want to discuss two National Monuments in
the state of Utah that are landscape-scale: Grand Staircase-
Escalante National Monument, which was created in 1996; and
Bears Ears National Monument, created recently. I do not wish
to go into the legality of these presidential proclamations,
nor do I intend to address the politics that fostered them,
although I am convinced that in both cases politics was a
greater factor than was protection of antiquities.
What I want to discuss with you this morning are the actual
effects these monuments have had and will continue to have on
individuals and communities that are directly impacted, and
upon the very objects that they are ostensibly intended to
protect.
Utah has been both a beneficiary and a victim of the
Antiquities Act. With respect to Grand Staircase and Bears
Ears, the burdens outweigh the benefits, largely due to the
enormous size of these monuments. To put the enormity into
perspective, the area of Utah's five very famous national parks
totals about 835,000 acres for our five parks, compared to over
3 million for two landscape national monuments. The lands
within Grand Staircase and Bears Ears are not only vast and
breathtakingly beautiful, but they are harsh, arid, and
unforgiving.
The bravely determined individuals who settled these lands
at the behest and with the encouragement of the Federal
Government somehow overcame these obstacles to establish
families, livelihoods, and communities that sparsely populate
the areas today. The individuals who now live on or near these
monuments are largely directly descendants of early
homesteaders, farmers, miners, and ranchers.
So, what does the creation of a national monument on these
lands do to people's lives and culture?
First of all, overnight their relationship with their
beloved environment and their land-based cultures are changed.
Extractive industries which have, for over 100 years,
provided jobs for residents and revenues for businesses and
local governments are now prohibited.
The Grand Staircase Monument locked up over 11 billion tons
of recoverable coal, and forced the shutdown of a fully
permitted coal mine in Kane County. The creation of these huge
monuments has unnecessarily had significant and negative impact
on traditional uses of these lands. The stated objective, both
of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase, is to properly protect
Native American ancient cultural sites from looting and
desecration.
However, archeological studies worldwide reflect the fact
that greater access to antiquities sites leads to greater, not
less, destruction. This phenomena has, in fact, been documented
on existing national monuments in the Southwest; and the
problem is greatly exacerbated with the sheer size of the
monuments and the number of antiquities sites.
A 1987 GAO report considered problems associated with
protecting monuments in the Four Corners area. It recognized
that, given the vast area, it was virtually impossible to
provide any type of physical protection. What this tells us is
that the creation of million-acre-plus national monuments to
protect thousands of archeological sites is counterproductive.
It is doing the wrong thing for the right reason, and it
violates the mandate that the monuments be appropriately small.
Any perceived benefits from the designation of huge
landscape-scale monuments needs to be weighed against the
impacts that are suffered by those who rely on the lands.
Landscapes do not disappear, but jobs and artifacts do.
National monuments should be judiciously employed so as not to
do unwarranted damage to the local lives and cultures, either
past or present.
Thank you for the opportunity to share my testimony.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Clarke follows:]
Prepared Statement of Kathleen Clarke, Director, Utah Public Lands
Policy Coordinating Office
Chairman Bishop, Ranking Member Grijalva, and members of the
Committee, thank you for this opportunity to speak with you about
National Monuments, a subject that is of intense and emotional
discussion. More specifically, I want to focus on two recently created
``landscape'' national monuments in the state of Utah: Grand Staircase
Escalante (1996) and Bears Ears (2016). I do not wish to go into the
legality of the presidential proclamations that established these
monuments under the Antiquities Act. Nor do I intend to address the
politics that fostered them, although I am convinced that, in both
cases, politics was a greater factor than was the protection of
antiquities. What I want to discuss with you this morning are the
actual effects these monuments have had and will have upon the
individuals and communities that are directly impacted, and upon the
very objects that they are ostensibly intended to protect. I believe my
service as BLM Director under President Bush, as well as my present
position of Director of Governor Herbert's Public Lands Policy
Coordinating Office, give me unique insight into these impacts.
I enthusiastically join in the chorus in recognizing that Utah's
five National Parks have been great assets to the state, as are the
other national monuments and recreation areas within the state.
However, Utah has been both a beneficiary and a victim of designations
under the Antiquities Act. With respect to the Grand Staircase and the
Bears Ears, the burdens outweigh the benefits, largely due to the
enormous size of these monuments.
To put the enormity of these two monuments into perspective, the
area of all five of Utah's National Parks (Zion, Bryce, Canyonlands,
Arches and Capital Reef) combined totals some 835,000 acres, far less
acreage than in either Grand Staircase (1.9 million acres) or Bears
Ears (1.3 million acres). Another way to look at it is that five Rhode
Islands, or two and one-half Delawares, would fit within the combined
areas of these two monuments.
The lands within the Grand Staircase and the Bears Ears are not
only vast and breathtakingly beautiful, but are also harsh, arid and
unforgiving. The bravely determined individuals that settled these
``waste lands,'' at the behest and with the encouragement of the
Federal Government, somehow overcame these obstacles to establish
families, livelihoods and the communities that sparsely populate the
areas today. The individuals who now live on or near these monuments
are largely direct descendants of the early homesteaders, farmers,
ranchers, miners and timbermen that had only these Federal lands to
sustain them. Many local residents today still live, work and draw
their incomes from the very lands stewarded by their ancestors.
So what does the creation of a national monument on these same
lands do to these people's lives and their culture? First of all,
overnight their relationship with their beloved environment and land-
based cultures are changed. Both proclamations creating the Grand
Staircase and Bears Ears withdraw these millions of acres from all
``entry, location, selection, sale [or] leasing.'' Extractive
industries which have for over a hundred years provided jobs for
residents and revenues for businesses and local governments are now
prohibited. Government reports indicate that there are an estimated
11.375 billion tons of recoverable coal on the Kaiparowits Plateau that
are now inaccessible. One large coal project in Kane County that was
fully permitted to tap this resource was abandoned upon the creation of
the Grand Staircase.
Families that have lived for generations in affected communities
find their families torn apart due to lack of employment opportunities
for the next generation. Populations are declining. In the 20 years
since the creation of the Grand Staircase, school enrollment in
Escalante has gone from 150 to 57 students. Neither seasonal employment
associated with tourism and recreation, nor the rotating positions of
BLM employees, contribute to the overall stability of these small
communities.
Even industries that remain authorized, such as grazing, find
themselves under mounting pressures and restrictions. A survey
conducted by Utah State University into economic impact on local
communities of livestock grazing in the Grand Staircase concluded that
(1) livestock grazing is essential to the economies of the Kane/
Garfield Counties economies and (2) that tourism and recreation cannot
replace livestock grazing in the Grand Staircase without substantial
additional investment. Yet, under pressure from NGOs that are committed
to the removal of all grazing on the public lands, AUMs (animal unit
months) have been decreased on the Monument by 25 percent. One
permittee has had 917 of his permitted 1,302 AUMs suspended.
The creation of these huge monuments has unnecessarily had
significant and negative impacts upon the traditional uses of these
lands and upon the lives and livelihoods of the local populations that
have stewarded the lands for generations.
The stated objective of both the Grand Staircase and the Bears Ears
is to protect Native American ancient cultural sites from looting and
desecration. However, due to the sheer size of these monuments, and the
enormous number of antiquity sites within them, the inevitable result
will actually be more looting and desecration.
Keep in mind that Grand Staircase is 1.9 million acres and Bears
Ears is 1.3 million acres. Each of these monuments is estimated to
house upwards of 20,000 sites. Bears Ears could contain as many as
100,000 sites depending upon site definitions. We don't really know for
certain because only 10 percent to 20 percent of the monuments have
been inventoried. These sites date back some 700 to 900 years, and are
still there for two primary reasons. First, the areas are remote,
somewhat inaccessible and have been lightly populated. Second, to the
Native American, these sites have spiritual significance and are to be
left alone.
Archeological studies worldwide reflect the fact that greater
access to antiquity sites leads to greater, not less, desecration. This
phenomenon has been found to occur on existing national monuments in
the Southwest. A 2009 study of factors contributing to antiquity site
desecration and defacement at Canyon de Chelly National Monument in
Arizona (Laris, J., A Perfect Pothunting Day (2009)) found that the
greatest contributors were increased access together with its
corollary, increased visitation. A 1997 paper that considered the
impacts of the creation of the Grand Staircase on archeological sites
within the Monument (Tipps, B., Archeology in the Grand Staircase
Escalante National Monument: Research Prospects and Management Issues
(1997)) confirmed the effects of increased visitation, concluding that:
``Increased visitation significantly accelerates impacts to
archeological sites.''
This problem is greatly exacerbated by the sheer size of the
monuments and the number of antiquity sites. A 1987 GAO Report
(Problems of Protecting and Preserving Federal Archeological Resources
(1987)) looked at the problems associated with protecting archeological
sites in the Four Corners Area. It recognized that, given the vast area
and the number of sites, it is virtually impossible to provide any type
of physical protection. It also identified the several laws already in
place that make looting and desecration a crime. The problem with the
enforcement of these laws is with staffing and funding levels, not with
whether it is a monument. While larger staffs may improve enforcement,
it will remain impossible to truly protect the thousands of sites if
access or visitation is dramatically increased. More people will always
mean more looting and desecration.
What this tells us is that the creation of million-acre plus acre
national monuments to protect thousands of archeological sites is
counter-productive. It is doing the wrong thing for the right reason.
The Antiquities Act requires the monuments be ``confined to the
smallest area compatible with the proper care and management of the
objects to be protected.'' Neither the Grand Staircase nor the Bears
Ears meets this test.
The intent behind the Antiquities Act is laudable and a great deal
of good has been accomplished nationwide through its exercise over the
last 110 years. But there should be limits upon the nature of the
objects that may be protected, and the size of monuments should be
limited to that which allows optimal protections for those objects. Any
perceived benefits from the designation of huge ``landscape'' monuments
need to be weighed against the impacts suffered by those who have
traditionally used the lands. Landscapes don't disappear, but jobs and
artifacts do. Creating national monuments that will bring visitors from
around the world won't protect antiquities, it will hasten their
defacement and destruction. Southern Utah is not just a playground; nor
is it just a science lab. Its lands have provided sustenance to those
who have had the courage to make it their homes for hundreds of years.
National Monuments should be employed judiciously so as not to do
unwarranted damage to the lives and cultures, either present or past.
The landscape monuments at the Grand Staircase and the Bears Ears as
presently configured violate this mandate.
______
Questions Submitted for the Record to Kathleen Clarke, Director, Utah
Public Lands Policy Coordinating Office
Questions Submitted by Subcommittee on Federal Lands
Question 1. What changes, if any, should be made to the Bears Ears
National Monument to ensure it is properly managed and protected?
Answer. The Public Lands Policy Coordinating Office does not have
responsibility or authority to make recommendations on behalf of the
state for modifications to the Bears Ears National Monument. The
state's elected officials, including the Governor and congressional
delegation, upon request from the President and the Secretary of the
Interior, may provide recommendations regarding changes to effectively
address the state's concerns regarding the monument lands and
resources. Ultimately, the President will make the final determination
regarding what changes, if any, are appropriate for the Bears Ears
National Monument.
Questions Submitted by Rep. Hanabusa
Question 1. A coalition of scientific and preservation groups--not
to mention tribal governments--urged the President to designate the
Bears Ears National Monument after the Public Lands Initiative
legislative process faltered.
They have publicly stated that, ``Bears Ears is one of the most
significant cultural landscapes in the United States. It contains more
than 100,000 cultural and archaeological sites associated with the
Navajo, Ute, Hopi, and Pueblo people who consider this region their
homeland . . . [it includes] Ice Age hunting camps, cliff dwellings,
prehistoric villages and petroglyph and pictograph panels that tell the
diverse stories of 12,000 years of human habitation.''
Your testimony states that designating landscape size monuments to
protect Native American antiquities is doing ``the wrong thing for the
right reason'' and that ``we don't really know for certain because only
10 percent to 20 percent of the monuments have been inventoried.''
Should the Federal Government prioritize the conservation of Native
American cultural sites and objects? Is the size of national monument
designations your main concern?
Answer. The Federal Government should, and already has, prioritized
the conservation of Native American cultural sites and objects. The
national monument will do nothing to further the conservation of these
items and, as explained in my original testimony, will in fact put
these sites and objects at greater risk. The issue is not one of
protection, but one of enforcement. It is not only the size of the
national monument that causes concern, but also, among other things,
the fact that proclaiming the Bears Ears National Monument will harm
the resources it purports to protect.
First, cultural resources are already protected by a host of laws.
Additional regulation, instead of enforcement, will not conserve Native
American cultural sites or objects. Second, Native American cultural
practices are protected by law and executive order. The Bears Ears
National Monument proclamation does not enhance these uses and may
instead burden them. Third, a national monument proclamation does not
mean that the area will receive additional funding, meaning that funds
that could have been used for enforcement may instead be used in
preparing a new management plan and promulgating more regulations.
Finally, the nature and extent of archaeological resources in the Bears
Ears National Monument is largely unknown because less than 10 percent
of the Monument had been inventoried at the time the proclamation was
issued. The Antiquities Act was never meant to apply to unknown
objects.
Proponents of the proposed national monument claimed that the land,
including its archeological sites, is unprotected, despite the
existence of several state and Federal statutes and regulations
protecting various historical and archeological resources. These laws
include the Antiquities Act, 54 U.S.C. Sec. Sec. 320101 et seq.; the
Utah Antiquities Act, Utah Code Ann. Sec. Sec. 9-8-301 et seq.; the
National Historic Preservation Act, 54 U.S.C.A. Sec. Sec. 300101 et
seq.; the Archaeological Resources Protection Act, 16 U.S.C.
Sec. Sec. 470aa et seq.; and the Native American Graves Protection and
Repatriation Act, 32 U.S.C. Sec. 3001, et seq. These laws are more than
sufficient to protect cultural resources if they would merely be
enforced.
As explained in my original testimony, National Monument
designations do not further the protection of Native American cultural
sites and resources. As discussed by Utah's Governor, Gary R. Herbert,
in testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural
Resources:
In 2015, the Grand Staircase-Escalante had 1,400 reported cases
of vandalism. According to the BLM, there have been only 25
cases of vandalism reported in the Bears Ears region since
2011. That means the Grand Staircase, with its monument
designation, currently experiences 140 times the rate of
vandalism as does the Bears Ears region.
Please do not misunderstand me: a single case of vandalism in
this area is too much. But the point remains, if we wish to
protect and preserve this area, drawing lines on a map that
will encourage increased visitation without a corresponding
increase in law enforcement and land management resources is
not a solution to vandalism and desecration problems. Indeed,
it will like [sic] worsen them.
Accordingly, the worst thing that can be done for these sites,
which have been preserved because of their remote location and lack of
visitors, is to invite unsupervised visitors to an un-policed area
where enforcement of existing land use protections are sorely lacking.
There are many significant and stringent laws on the books protecting
Native American resources; the issue is enforcing those laws rather
than creating national monuments that will adversely affect the
cultural resources within its boundaries.
Second, a national monument proclamation will not increase
protection of traditional Native American practices or activities. A
monument proclamation is not needed to recognize such activities or
allow them to continue; if anything the proclamation may be used to
inhibit or burden the exercise of religious freedoms. Moreover, Native
American religious practices are protected by law and executive order.
The American Indian Religious Freedom Act, 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1996,
provides that it is ``the policy of the United States to protect and
preserve for American Indians their inherent right of freedom to
believe, express, and exercise the traditional religions of the
American Indian . . ., including but not limited to access to sites,
use and possession of sacred objects, and the freedom to worship
through ceremonials and traditional rites.'' Similarly, Executive Order
No. 13007 (May 24, 1996) provides that ``[i]n managing Federal lands,
each executive branch agency with statutory or administrative
responsibility for the management of Federal lands shall, to the extent
practicable, permitted by law, and not clearly inconsistent with
essential agency functions, (1) accommodate access to and ceremonial
use of Indian sacred sites by Indian religious practitioners and (2)
avoid adversely affecting the physical integrity of such sacred
sites.''
Management restrictions, such as group limitations and permit
requirements, may inhibit the exercise of Native American religious
practices. In the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, for
example, without a permit groups over 25 people are allowed in only 4
percent of the Monument, and in 65 percent of the Monument group sizes
are limited to 12 people. Fuel wood harvesting is only allowed in two
very small areas and collection of natural materials by Native
Americans is allowed only pursuant to a BLM permit.
Third, the Antiquities Act grants no authority whatsoever for the
President to fund the national monument designation. National monument
designations do not automatically result in funding and at least one
Member of Congress has proposed refusing to fund the Bears Ears
National Monument. What limited funding available for the land and
resources in the Bears Ears region will likely be applied to preparing
the management plan and regulations mandated by the proclamation, not
enforcing existing laws. No amount of additional regulation will
protect the resources without enforcement of existing laws that more
than adequately protect the resources.
Finally, the Antiquities Act was never meant to apply to unknown
objects or to allow for large, landscape level reservations. It is
impossible to reserve the smallest area compatible with the care and
management of the object when you don't know what the object is or
where it is located. As of early 2017, there were 8,480 known
archaeological sites in the Bears Ears National Monument and 27,734
known sites county-wide. Accordingly, the assertions regarding 100,000
archaeological sites are merely estimates of the number of sites that
may exist. Approximately 9 percent of the land within the Bears Ears
National Monument's boundaries has been inventoried, meaning that
around 90 percent of the Monument has not been inventoried and unknown
archaeological sites in uninventoried areas cannot be used as the basis
of a reservation.
The Antiquities Act allows the President to ``reserve parcels of
land as part of the national monuments,'' but limits these reservations
to ``the smallest area compatible with the proper care and management
of the objects to be protected.'' 54 U.S.C. Sec. 320301(b). By its
express terms, the Antiquities Act prescribes an ``inside out''
approach. This means that the national monument objects must be
identified first, followed by a reservation of land that is the
smallest necessary to protect those objects. If the location of the
objects is unknown, unsurveyed, or uninventoried, then a reservation of
land for their care and management is inappropriate. The Antiquities
Act does not allow for the drawing of an arbitrary boundary followed by
a description of whatever items may be located on the land.
This ``inside out'' approach was used in early proclamations, but
has been abandoned in recent years in favor of locking away large
parcels of land. For example, Devil's Tower, the first National
Monument, is a singular monolith for which just over 1,000 acres was
reserved. Other early monuments include El Morro National Monument,
which is a lone sandstone bluff containing inscriptions spanning
hundreds of years; Montezuma Castle, which is a small area containing
isolated Native American ruins; Petrified Forest, an area containing
large petrified wood trees; Chaco Canyon, a solitary canyon containing
numerous large ruins; Cinder Cone and Lassen Peak National Monuments,
which included two volcanic peaks, a lava field, and two lakes; and
Gila Cliff Dwellings, which is a small area containing Native American
ruins. More recent designations, on the other hand, have used an
``outside in'' approach, which first identifies the area that various
special interest groups would like to see designated as a monument and
then catalogues every item that may potentially be located on that
land, regardless of whether the location is known or fixed. This method
of drawing the reservation first and then identifying what objects
might exist in that reservation, is inconsistent with the Antiquities
Act's express terms and a gross abuse of the limited reservation
authority that was granted.
The recent Bears Ears National Monument is a prime example of the
outside-in approach adopted in recent years. Using boundaries largely
borrowed from proposed legislation, the proclamation catalogues every
item that may be located inside the Monument, regardless of whether its
location is fixed or known. Items identified in the proclamation
include intangible qualities such as star-filled nights, natural quiet,
and deafening silence and common plants and animals such as greasewood,
sagebrush, mule deer, coyotes, and porcupines. Less than 10 percent of
the Monument has been inventoried for archaeological resources, which
have been showcased as the primary justification for the Monument.
Given that the location of items identified in the proclamation is
largely unknown and unfixed, the boundaries could not possibly be the
smallest area compatible with the objects' care and management. The
ambient, common, unfixed, and unknown items, along with many other
potential monument objects identified in the proclamation, are well
outside the original intent of the Antiquities Act.
The Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, proclaimed in
1996, suffers from many of the same defects as the Bears Ears National
Monument. Grand Staircase-Escalante contains 1.7 million acres of land
and was proclaimed, in part, to prohibit a proposed coal mine. The
items mentioned in the proclamation, which are argued to be ``objects''
under the Antiquities Act, include ``clearly exposed stratigraphy and
structures''; ``1,600 square miles of sedimentary rock''; ``cultural
resources discovered so far . . .'' and ``undocumented sites'';
``unusual and diverse soils''; ``pinon-juniper communities'';
``abundance of packrat middens''; and ``wildlife.'' These common
objects do not warrant reservation of 1.7 million acres for their
protection. It should be noted that portions of the descriptive
language from the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument
proclamation were later recycled and incorporated into the Grand
Canyon-Parashant National Monument proclamation, showing the generic
nature of the proclamation.
Question 2. The notion that Antiquities Act designations are a
``Federal land grab'' is a myth propagated by opponents of national
monuments. Barring a land exchange, like the one authorized by Congress
following the designation of Grand Staircase-Escalante National
Monument, national monument designations only affect existing Federal
land and do not change the status of any state, school trust, or
private lands.
Can you confirm that the Bears Ears National Proclamation, like the
Proclamation establishing the Grand Staircase-Escalante National
Monument, did not `take' any non-Federal land or control its
disposition?
Can you also confirm that the Antiquities Act does not give the
President authority to nullify, cancel or otherwise appropriate valid
existing rights?
Answer. While bare legal title before and after the national
monument proclamation has remained in the United States, property
interests and incidents of ownership, including multiple use of the
land, have been taken from the state and the public and reserved to the
United States. This retraction of rights previously available and open
to the state and public is apparent from the reservation clause in the
Bears Ears National Monument proclamation, which proclaimed that:
All Federal lands and interests in lands within the boundaries
of the monument are hereby appropriated and withdrawn from all
forms of entry, location, selection, sale, or other disposition
under the public land laws or laws applicable to the U.S.
Forest Service, from location, entry, and patent under the
mining laws, and from disposition under all laws relating to
mineral and geothermal leasing, other than by exchange that
furthers the protective purposes of the monument.
The Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument proclamation
contains a reservation clause that withdraws and appropriates Federal
land and interests ``from entry, location, selection, sale, leasing, or
other disposition under the public land laws, other than by exchange
that furthers the protective purposes of the monument.''
Accordingly, uses and property interests available before a
monument, such as the establishment of new roads and rights of way,
timber harvest, mineral location, entry, and patent, and mineral
leasing have been removed or severely restricted by the proclamation.
For example, any new trails or roads for motorized vehicles purportedly
must be for public safety or protecting monument objects. The national
monument proclamation, and management directives, therefore expressly
control the disposition and use of and take from the public various
property interests and incidents of ownership that were previously
expressly allowed and regulated by law and regulation.
It is true that the Antiquities Act does not give the President any
authority whatsoever to nullify, cancel, or otherwise appropriate valid
existing rights. Monument proclamations, however, significantly affect
valid existing rights. As explained by Professor James R. Rasband,
``Making the withdrawal of Federal land `subject to valid existing
rights' offers less protection to the holder of a right in Federal land
than might initially appear. The reason is that the existing rights are
not absolute but subject to a variety of restrictions.'' James R.
Rasband, Utah's Grand Staircase: The Right Path to Wilderness
Preservation?, 70 U. Colo. L. Rev. 483, 518-521 (1999). Protection of
valid existing rights has been interpreted to mean only that the
restrictions cannot `` `make economic development completely
unprofitable': essentially, as long as it does not constitute a Fifth
Amendment taking.'' Id. at 519-20. Accordingly, ``[i]n the end,
therefore, the `valid existing rights' language probably does more to
protect the Federal treasury than rights holders. The language ensures
that the withdrawal itself will not be construed as a taking, but
allows a variety of restrictions to avoid degradation or impairment of
the lands within the Monument.'' Id. at 520-21. ``Understood in this
light, the rights holder might be better off, in many cases, if the
withdrawal purported to eliminate her valid existing rights because
just compensation would be available.'' Id. at n.172.
Monument management, as a practical matter, often results in
management activities that result in the curtailment of or inability to
exercise pre-existing rights. See e.g. Raymond B. Wrabley, Jr.,
Managing the Monument: Cows and Conservation in Grandstaircase-
Escalante [sic] National Monument, 29 J. Land Resources & Envtl. L. 253
(2009) (detailing disputes over grazing management in the Grand
Staircase-Escalante National Monument). As explained above,
restrictions on the nature and extent of activities, along with the
requirements for permits for many other activities, burden activities
that were previously enjoyed within the monument. Unreasonable
limitations reduce access and activities on monument land.
Monument proclamations also adversely affect inheld property, such
as state trust lands. State trust land tracts that were previously
surrounded by multiple-use land are now surrounded by land that, in
many cases, are managed to promote preservation and conservation. With
these management objectives come increasingly burdensome and
restrictive regulations, especially with respect to access. Monument
proclamations often contain restrictions on the construction of new
roads or trails. Access to state parcels, to the extent it has not
already been established, will likely require expensive environmental
analyses and result in protracted litigation. Even when access is
recognized, it may be difficult to develop the small sections owned by
the state instead of having the opportunity to extract the entire
available resource. With fluctuating commodity markets and ever-
increasing costs of administrative review, many resources may never be
developed.
______
Mr. McClintock. All right, thank you very much for your
testimony. Next the Committee welcomes Mr. Lucas St. Clair,
president of Elliotsville Plantation, Incorporated, for 5
minutes.
STATEMENT OF LUCAS ST. CLAIR, PRESIDENT, ELLIOTSVILLE
PLANTATION INC., PORTLAND, MAINE
Mr. St. Clair. Good morning, and thank you, Chairman
Bishop, Chairman McClintock, Ranking Member Hanabusa, and
Grijalva, and distinguished members of the House Subcommittee
on Federal Lands. It is an honor to speak with you this
morning. What I would like to talk to you about are national
monuments, and particularly the creation of Katahdin Woods and
Waters National Monument in Maine.
My name is Lucas St. Clair, and my family and I donated
87,500 acres of land and $40 million to the National Park
Service for the creation of Katahdin Woods and Waters National
Monument. We care deeply about the Katahdin region, where I was
born and raised, and the National Park System, as a whole. We
have worked hard to continue this Monument and make it a
success, and that work continues today.
The land for the Monument was purchased at market rates
from timber companies who sold it to our foundation. It is
private property given to the National Park Service for the
benefit and enjoyment of all people.
The work to create a national monument began many years
ago, and over time has changed as more and more people became
involved. We held dozens of outreach meetings, one-on-one
conversations, and public forums dating back to 2011 and
before. There were public debates and an open and honest
conversation. Those meetings included a field hearing by this
Committee, followed by a town hall meeting led by
Representative Bruce Poliquin, who represents the Monument. At
this meeting, supporters of the Monument outnumbered opponents
4 to 1.
At the invitation of U.S. Senator Angus King, National Park
Service Director Jonathan Jarvis held two meetings in Maine.
The larger of the two was attended by over 1,400 people, the
vast majority of whom spoke in support of the National
Monument.
Through years of public input, the idea of the National
Monument got better by including more and more local voices.
And, thanks to public input, traditional outdoor activities
such as hunting, snowmobiling, fishing, and cross-country
skiing, are forever protected and guaranteed on Monument lands,
and why the overall size of the Monument was reduced from
150,000 acres to 87,500, the smallest area that adequately
protects the natural and cultural resource.
The voices of the people were heard. Hunting and
snowmobiling are an important part of our state's heritage, and
that is why we had to make sure that they were protected in the
Monument. Our foundation is committed to a $40 million
endowment to help support the operations and maintenance of the
new Monument, and that public-private partnership has led to
make sure monument lands were open to the public on Day 1 after
the designation, and that infrastructure improvements are
ongoing.
In October, Maine pollster, Critical Insights, asked Maine
their opinion about the National Monument, and 72 percent say
they support the Katahdin Woods and Waters. Polling has
consistently shown strong support for the Monument.
The Monument has won the support of the Katahdin Area
Chamber of Commerce. The President, Gail Fanjoy, is here today,
along with others, to represent the support of business leaders
from the region. Businesses are starting to grow and expand.
Jobs are being created. Real estate prices have started to
rebound. And there are new significant private-sector
investments, including plans for a $5 million outdoor
recreational school underway.
The local non-profit group which is leading the effort to
redevelop a closed mill site near the Monument tells me that
the presence of Katahdin Woods and Waters is a selling point,
as potential investors recognize the value it provides at
attracting employees to the region's quality of life. Even
long-time opponents have started to come around, as they have
begun to recognize the benefits of having a National Monument
near their communities.
Katahdin Woods and Waters is a beautiful and amazing place,
and much more than just views of Mount Katahdin or cutover
land, as Governor LePage has suggested. It is culturally and
historically significant, both to the history of logging and to
Maine's Native American communities, who consider the area
sacred.
Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument is a model of
how the Antiquities Act should work. It can be used to protect
land of national significance, spark economic activity and job
creation, and take into account the broad range of ideas.
I hope that you will one day visit Katahdin Woods and
Waters and you will see for yourself a community revitalized
and hopeful about a stronger and better future. Thank you very
much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. St. Clair follows:]
Prepared Statement of Lucas St. Clair, President, Elliotsville
Plantation Inc.
Good morning and thank you Chairman Bishop, Ranking Member
Grijalva, Chairman McClintock and Ranking Member Hanabusa for the
invitation to testify before the House Natural Resources Federal Lands
Subcommittee. I'm pleased to speak with the Committee about an
important conservation law, the Antiquities Act, that has preserved
some of the most incredible natural wonders including the Grand Canyon
and Death Valley National Parks, Native American sites like Mesa Verde,
and sites where major historical events took place including Birmingham
and Stonewall. We are fortunate that President Teddy Roosevelt had the
foresight and wisdom to preserve a broad array of public lands where
all Americans can access these places they own, be inspired, pray if
they wish, learn and enjoy in perpetuity.
I'm a native Mainer, born and raised. From a young age, the woods
were my playground where I climbed hills and mountains, fished in ponds
and streams, learned to kayak and hunted woodcock and grouse. Today, I
serve as President of Elliotsville Plantation Inc. (EPI), a private
operating foundation whose mission is the acquisition and conservation
of land and the preservation of open space for the benefit of the
public and the conduct of educational and stewardship programs. Over
two decades, EPI purchased forestland in northern Maine to further this
conservation mission.
In 2011 when I became President of EPI, my focus was working with
citizens in Maine to develop a proposal to turn our privately-owned
land into a donation to the Federal Government for a national park
unit. Our proposal was accepted by the Federal Government and last
August, the Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument was established
by presidential proclamation. This Monument includes key features that
were essential to gain public support including hunting and
snowmobiling on the east side of the East Branch of the Penobscot
River. In addition, our foundation will donate $20 million and raise
another $20 million toward an endowment to manage the Monument. I
appreciate the opportunity to share my thoughts about our community-led
effort to donate land for our fellow Americans to enjoy and importance
of the Antiquities Act.
Let me provide some background on our state where roughly 92
percent of the land is in private ownership. To keep the size of
Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument in perspective, its 87,500
acres is less than 0.4 percent of the land in Maine, and less than 1
percent of the largely undeveloped 10 million-acre area known as
Maine's North Woods. While our donation is large enough to help
preserve a piece of the North Woods for posterity, it barely registers
compared to privately-held land in Maine.
Maine is known for thick, lush northern forests and an unrivaled
coast teeming with lobsters. We are proud of these amazing natural
resources that have shaped our history, our love for the outdoors, and
our economy. In the mid-19th century as timber harvesting grew so did
the population in northern Maine. Land was sold to timber barons and
the demand for paper and wood products grew at the turn of the century.
Mills were built, logs were run down rivers including the Penobscot
River, and the timber industry fed Maine's economy.
In my lifetime, I didn't witness the aforementioned heyday.
Instead, I grew up in a small town called Dover-Foxcroft with a
population of 4,500 people and witnessed a different economic
situation. I watched Millinocket, a nearby town where most working-aged
men worked in either the paper mill or in the woods supplying the mill,
start a slow decline. By 2008, the paper mill in Millinocket closed
followed by more mill closures in the region.
Many of my friends moved out of northern Maine seeking jobs further
south or elsewhere. Northern Maine is not thriving and the population
continues to shrink. This incredible region that so many of us care
about is struggling. Let me share with you a couple of sentences from a
Bangor Daily News editorial (2015) endorsing a national park proposal
for northern Maine:
Maine North Woods national park has been the subject of debate
for more than two decades. In that time, the economic landscape
of the Katahdin region has shifted dramatically--for the
worse--and the ownership of much of the timberland stretching
from Millinocket to the Canadian border has changed hands. A
long tradition of mill jobs available to area residents right
out of high school and open access to mill-owned land has
gradually eroded, leaving an uncertain future . . .
The reality in the area is stark. Employment in the paper and
forest products industries has dropped by more than half in the
last two decades. In early 2015, about 5,500 people were
employed by all of Maine's paper mills, according to the Maine
Department of Labor. That's about the number of people who
worked in the Great Northern Paper Co. mills in Millinocket and
East Millinocket alone in the GNP heyday. Mill operators have
put the future of more Maine mills in doubt since the
Department of Labor's last count, which is bound to further
depress employment.
This is northern Maine's reality. Mills are closed and sold for
scrap metal. Houses and commercial real estate sit on the market
indefinitely. You don't need a degree in business or a certificate of
election to know what has been happening to the economy in northern
Maine. It's obvious.
My family began acquiring and conserving land in 2000. Timber
companies approached us to buy their land near Baxter State Park in
full view of the majestic Mt. Katahdin. The land includes three
important waterways--the East Branch of the Penobscot River, Sebeois
River, and Wassataquoik Stream. As many of you who share my passion for
the outdoors can guess, these waterways have fantastic brook trout and
smallmouth bass. The watersheds provide wildlife habitat for lynx,
bears, moose and bird species like gray jays, boreal chickadees and the
American three-toed woodpecker.
The land tells the story of the Wabanaki people who migrated
between the property my family donated and the coast to hunt and fish
during the year. The land tells the story of the lumberjacks rolling
logs down the rivers to the mills. The land tells the story of Teddy
Roosevelt who in 1879 summited Katahdin after hiking nearly 40 miles
from Island Falls, Maine. Roosevelt and his party crossed the East
Branch of the Penobscot River and Wassataquoik Stream in an experience
that sparked a life-long commitment to conservation.
My family cares deeply about conservation and felt the best way to
preserve the outdoors, tell the stories of the people of northern
Maine, and help the economy was to donate our land to the National Park
Service.
Starting in 2011, I met with neighbors, business owners,
politicians, hotel owners, timber industry executives, snowmobilers,
anglers, hikers, skiers, river guides, teachers, mill workers and many
other Mainers who care about the future of our local communities and
state. I joke about the amount of coffee I drank over 5 years--more
than I care to admit. I sat in many living rooms and heard in great
detail what folks wanted if a national park were going to be
established in northern Maine. I took every conversation to heart and
designed a proposed park that responded to what I heard.
Access to hunting, snowmobiling, skiing, and hiking were on the top
of the list. Amenities and expectations for the property were very
important--more toilets, campgrounds, improved roads and bridges.
Essentially, we needed a national park unit with opportunities for
sightseeing, hiking, river running, mountain biking and cross country
skiing, and also for hunting and snowmobiling. It was essential to
include hunting and snowmobiling--two activities that cannot always be
counted on from year to year on private land. We needed to ensure that
the opportunity for these uses would be guaranteed and supported in
this park unit. We consulted with national park experts to determine
whether this homegrown conception could become a reality, and developed
a national park proposal that provided a range of activities across the
landscape from Baxter State Park to the gateway communities.
The national park proposal gained support from important regional
business and civic groups including the Katahdin Area Chamber of
Commerce, the Katahdin Rotary Club, the Greater Houlton Chamber of
Commerce, the Bangor City Council and the Maine Innkeepers Association.
More than 200 Maine businesses in the Katahdin, Houlton, Presque Isle,
Bangor and Acadia regions--endorsed the park proposal.
In April 2015, a Critical Insights poll showed that 67 percent of
residents of Maine's 2nd congressional district (northern, western and
eastern Maine) supported the proposed national park unit. In November
2015, advocates delivered more than 13,000 signatures in support of the
proposed park unit from residents of 371 Maine towns and 50 states to
Maine's congressional delegation.
After the proposal gained momentum in northern Maine, we began
exploring a national monument designation. Senator Angus King invited
the National Park Service Director to meet with and answer questions
for folks in the region. There were several meetings and some impromptu
gatherings. The culmination was a well-publicized public meeting in
Orono, Maine with over 1,400 Mainers from all over the state, where the
vast majority supported our proposal for a national monument managed by
the National Park Service. In a state where the population of 60
percent of our towns is less than 2,000 residents--this was an
impressive turnout. In addition, of the roughly 400 handwritten
comments collected at the meeting, approximately 95 percent supported a
national monument.
I can't overemphasize the amount of transparency and community
engagement that preceded the establishment of Katahdin Woods and Waters
National Monument. I made many trips to Washington, DC and met with
some of you and your colleagues over the years. I met with our
delegation in Maine. Based on the strong support demonstrated for our
proposal, we offered to donate our properties along the East Branch of
the Penobscot River to the National Park Service. The National Park
Service indicated that the properties fully met its criteria for units
of the National Park System. Once the donation was complete and the
title transfers occurred, the land was declared Katahdin Woods and
Waters National Monument by the president under his authority in the
Antiquities Act.
Do all 87,000 acres meet the criteria under the law? As the
proclamation establishing the Monument demonstrates, this very special
natural and cultural landscape meets these criteria without question.
The objects of historic and scientific interest occur throughout
the landscape, in all the 13 deeded parcels we donated. They include
remarkable geology, undeveloped watersheds and stunning hydrological
features, significant biodiversity and connectivity for plants and
animals, and extraordinary opportunities to observe and study all this
natural wonder. The objects also include the history of human activity
in this landscape, include its significance to the Wabanaki people,
loggers and timber companies, recreationists including hunters,
anglers, and hikers, artists including John James Audubon and Frederic
Edwin Church, and historic figures including Henry David Thoreau and
Theodore Roosevelt whose lives were changed by these North Woods. All
the land included in the national monument encompasses, and is
essential to the proper care and management of, these objects.
Whether it's the wild rivers, critical wildlife habitat, historical
significance, awe-inspiring scenery, or night skies and northern
lights--the area is a natural and cultural wonder that Americans should
visit and embrace much like Acadia National Park on Maine's coast. Like
Katahdin Woods and Waters, Acadia started as a National Monument
proclaimed by President Wilson after private land had been donated for
it. Without the Antiquities Act, neither of these places that are
quintessentially Maine would have had a fighting chance to be preserved
for all Americans.
I have heard the notion that the Antiquities Act should only be
used in the face of an imminent threat. While nothing in the Act so
states, the Act is a very important tool when there is some urgency for
protection. So, was there urgency to protect Katahdin Woods and Waters
National Monument? Yes, there were lands that were up for sale, and
there is economic urgency. Our community needs investment and quickly.
My family chose to focus on a national monument as a way to diversify
the economy while saving some of the region's defining characteristics.
We hope other philanthropists, business owners and real estate
investors follow our lead in promoting the regional economy. We have
reason to hope this could happen. Last summer, Federal Commerce
Department experts came to the region to provide support. A recent news
report from centralmaine.com describes this effort:
The team, requested by U.S. Senators Angus King and Susan
Collins, is a rare instance of the Federal Government
marshaling Federal resources to assist a region experiencing
economic distress. Modeled after the national Disaster Recovery
Framework, it has been deployed 30 times nationwide in its 40-
year history, including to address the Deepwater Horizon oil
spill and the collapse of New England's fisheries.
It also comes with $7.7 million in Federal money to invest in
the forest products industry and to support and track the
results of the team's visit to Maine.
The state's congressional delegation is part of the team, but
no state government officials are. The Maine planning committee
is made up of representatives from the private sector.
Much planning and research went into the 3-day tour that
concluded Friday, according to officials, who said the
involvement of Federal agencies and their work did not end this
week, but rather will continue for the next 3 years with the
development of an ``action plan'' and specific goals for the
industry.
Collins, King and U.S. Rep. Bruce Poliquin, in a joint
statement Friday, thanked the Commerce Department and members
of the team for their efforts over the last 3 days and said
their work is ``an important first step and the beginning of a
longer-term process among industry, local stakeholders, and
Federal agencies that can revitalize this critical pillar of
our economy.''
The statement did not mention the response from state
government.
We hope the engagement with the Commerce Department expands and
grows. We hope the state government participates. It is critically
important for the region to get Federal assistance to design strategies
to grow our forest products industries and we believe those efforts are
entirely compatible with the Katahdin Woods and Waters National
Monument.
In other hopeful news, since the designation of the Katahdin Woods
and Waters National Monument, the towns around Katahdin Woods and
Waters National Monument are witnessing economic improvement. Real
estate sales have picked up, multi-season visitation is increasing and
business investments are happening. A foundation is making a $5 million
investment to build an outdoor education facility just south of the
National Monument. EPI continues to work with the National Park Service
to make infrastructure improvements to the monument as well as raise
money toward our commitment of a $40 million endowment for the
monument.
National monuments are one component of the communities which they
are a part. Some provide recreation opportunities, some protect sacred
sites, some preserve the stories of our past, and some protect our
natural resources for the future. They can support tourism or new
residents to an area. In our case, I hope the monument attracts a
variety of industries so some of my old friends are able to find jobs
and move back to the region to raise their families. These communities
need diversified economies. The days of one industry dominating an area
are long gone.
There was great wisdom in designing a law to allow a president to
preserve our heritage for future generations. It has been working for
over 100 years and there are more than 150 places that prove the
success of this law. I'm grateful that Katahdin Woods and Waters
National Monument is a shining example No adjustment is necessary.
______
Questions Submitted for the Record to Mr. Lucas St. Clair, Elliotsville
Plantation
Questions Submitted by Subcommittee on Federal Lands
Question 1. How much money have you, your family, or organizations
associated with your family spent on lobbying, consulting, or public
relations for Federal protection for your property (what is now the
National Monument)?
Answer. First, let me thank you Chairman Bishop, Ranking Member
Grijalva, Chairman McClintock and Ranking Member Hanabusa for the
invitation to testify before the House Natural Resources Federal Lands
Subcommittee. It was a great opportunity to explain to you and the
public the tireless work that my family and I did to meet the public
interest while establishing a new National Monument on the private land
that we donated to the national park service. We are thrilled to see
the economic, recreation, and conservation enhancement that is already
happening in this beautiful region of Maine. Below, you will find my
responses to the questions that you had asked as a followup to my
testimony.
My family's donation of nearly 90k acres of our private land to the
public was a large land-based gift to the National Park Service for
Mainers and all Americans to enjoy for future generations. Implementing
our donative intent required many resources, including hiring
consultants, attorneys, scientists, financial advisors, realtors and
others. As I stated in my verbal testimony, my family began acquiring
land in 1998. In addition to those people hired to facilitate this
effort, many business owners, elected officials, recreationists and
others made countless in-kind donations of their time to support a
national park unit for our property. Any quantification wouldn't do
justice to people who supported the effort to create Katahdin Woods and
Waters National Monument. It would be impossible to monetize all of
these activities.
Question 2. Your organization donated the land on August 12, 2016
and it was accepted by the Federal Government on August 17, 2016.
However, the National Monument was not designated until a full week
later on August 24, 2016. When were you first notified that the
President intended to designate the Katahdin Woods and Waters National
Monument? Who notified you of this decision?
Answer. Because we were private landowners attempting to transfer a
large amount of our property, including land, buildings, and other
assets, to the Federal Government, we spoke to a variety of entities
within the Federal Government over many weeks and months. I can't tell
you precisely when the President made the decision to move ahead with
the designation. I was notified by staff at the Council on
Environmental Quality when the Secretary of the Interior was prepared
to accept our donation of property for the Monument.
Question 3. Regarding the pledged $40 million endowment for the
Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument:
a. What date was the endowment established?
b. How much of the additional $20 million Elliotsville Plantation
pledged to raise has actually been donated to the endowment
as of May 2, 2017?
c. Where is the endowment housed?
d. Who runs the endowment and what is the structure of its Board of
Directors?
e. What is the annual spending rate of the endowment?
f. Can money from the endowment be used to acquire additional land
for the National Monument?
g. Who would make a final decision on closing the endowment?
Answer. Our family has gifted a $20 million dollar endowment to the
National Park Foundation and created a Friends Group that will be
responsible in raising an additional $20 million. Please direct any
other questions you may have to the National Park Foundation, the
entity that houses and administers the endowment.
______
Mr. McClintock. Thank you.
We now recognize the final witness for this morning, Mr.
Knox Marshall, the Vice President of Resources for the Murphy
Timber Investments Company.
STATEMENT OF KNOX MARSHALL, VICE PRESIDENT OF RESOURCES, MURPHY
TIMBER INVESTMENTS LLC, EUGENE, OREGON
Mr. Marshall. Good morning. Thank you all for the
opportunity to speak here today. My name is Knox Marshall. I am
a third-generation forester, born and raised in a small logging
community in McCloud, California. I have practiced forestry
professionally in the Pacific Northwest since 1990 in the
politically charged regions including those in Southern Oregon
and in Northern California, including the Redwoods on the
coast.
I currently am the resource manager for Murphy Company,
headquartered in Eugene, Oregon. Murphy Company is led by
third-generation president John Murphy, and we have been in the
forest product industry since 1909. Our company focuses on
processing logs into veneer-raised products, predominantly
engineered lumber and high-end decorative hardwood panels and
softwood plywood. We have five manufacturing facilities
starting in southern Oregon; a veneer plant in White City; a
softwood plywood mill in Rogue River; an engineered wood
facility in Southerland, Oregon; a hardwood plywood mill in
Eugene, Oregon; and finally, a veneer processing facility in
Elma, Washington.
Murphy Company currently employs over 750 people with
family grade wages in rural communities where we operate, and
many more, indirectly. Our wood products enterprise is
dependent upon consistent, sustainable production of forest
products from our western forests. We procure in excess of 140
million board feet annually to sustain our businesses and the
people we directly and indirectly employ. Approximately 50 to
60 percent of the logs we use are produced from public
forestlands.
We are a multi-generational company, and we support
responsible forest management, where the long-term health of
our forests is the top priority.
The management of Federal lands in southern Oregon has been
in steady decline for the last 20-plus years. The forest health
on these lands has continued to decline rapidly, and the
solution will need to have forest restoration as its primary
objective. Pace and scale of these restoration efforts needs to
be ramped up, and the forests are on a clear trajectory to be
at risk to catastrophic fire and permanent loss.
On January 12, 2017, President Obama, by proclamation,
expanded the Cascades-Siskiyou National Monument. First, the
Monument removes over 40,000 acres of O&C lands from the
timberland base managed by the BLM, which were specifically
designated by Congress in the O&C Act of 1937 for permanent
timber production. These lands are in desperate need of
management, and a significant acreage need immediate forest
restoration, which is no longer an option.
The communities in southern Oregon, where we have invested
significant capital and the 400-plus family grade wage they
support, are again going to be at risk. We have known this for
the past 5 years, and the emphasis on managing the high-risk
forests in southern Oregon was not a priority because they were
too highly controversial. Because of that, we made a leap as a
company in 2014, led by myself and our owner, John Murphy, to
invest and purchase 50,000 acres of timberland. This was to
provide some certainty for our manufacturing facilities and the
jobs that they support.
The expansion of this Monument included within its boundary
2,100 acres of our own timberlands, as well as adjacent to
another 1,900 acres, where we believe the restrictions on
forest management are going to directly correlate to increased
risk of catastrophic wildfire.
The expansion of this Monument has significantly decreased
the operable land base in southern Oregon on Federal lands and
puts our own private lands at risk to catastrophic fire and
other infestations of diseases. Murphy Company purchased these
timberlands to sustain our manufacturing operations, and the
Monument expansion has a direct impact on a significant portion
of them.
We have a continued commitment to the southern Oregon rural
communities, and will be focused on working toward solutions.
Rural communities in Oregon need help. The small community of
Rogue River in 2009 was in tough economic condition. With
Murphy Company's purchase of the bankrupt plywood mill in 2010,
we employed 240 people. Without a sustainable flow of the
forest products, communities like Rogue River may suffer again,
like many others are suffering right now in the state.
Decisions need to be done thoughtfully with all
stakeholders involved, so that reviving and sustaining some of
these small rural communities with responsible management of
our Federal lands continues. Creation of the Monument under the
Antiquities Act is generally ill-suited to reach durable
compromising solutions. These decisions have far-reaching
impacts, and should be handled through a legislative process.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Marshall follows:]
Prepared Statement of Knox Marshall, Murphy Company
My name is Knox Marshall and I am the Vice President of the
Resources Division at Murphy Company, a family-owned wood products
manufacturer headquartered in Eugene, Oregon. Murphy Company is a long-
time Oregon employer that dates back to 1909 and is presently lead by
CEO John Murphy, the grandson of one of our founders. We employ over
750 workers in family wage jobs at four wood products manufacturing
plants in Oregon and one in Washington. The Oregon facilities include a
veneer plant in White City, a softwood plywood plant in Rogue River, a
hardwood plywood specialty plant in Eugene and a laminated veneer
lumber (``LVL'') facility in Sutherlin. We are especially proud of the
LVL plant in Sutherlin, which demonstrates our commitment to staying
efficient and innovative in the North American wood products industry
that continues to be pressured by international competition. In
Washington, we own and operate a veneer plant in Elma to augment our
supply of raw material for our Oregon plants.
From a raw material standpoint, all five of our manufacturing
plants depend upon a consistent quality log supply flowing to our two
veneer plants, which in turn produce the veneer utilized in the value-
added plywood and LVL manufactured at our three secondary production
plants. On an annual basis, I am responsible for coordinating the
acquisition of 140 million plus board feet of logs to meet the raw
material needs of Murphy Company's manufacturing operations. In
southern Oregon, we depend upon public forests for approximately half
of the annual raw material needs of our White City veneer plant.
Approximately 20 percent of this volume is timber harvested from lands
managed by the Bureau of Land Management, and predominately from O&C
lands, which are the focus of my testimony today.
President Obama's January 12, 2017 proclamation expanding the
boundaries of the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument jeopardizes our
company's continued operations in two ways. First, the Monument
expansion removes over 40,000 acres of O&C lands from the timberland
base managed by BLM, lands which were specifically designated by
Congress in the O&C Act of 1937 for permanent timber production. Over
the last 15 years, we have seen an 80 percent drop in the timber
harvest levels from USDA national forest and BLM lands. In timber-
dependent counties where Federal forests account for more than half of
the acreage in that county, there has been a precipitous decline in
quality logging and wood products manufacturing jobs that has both
devastated the social fabric of our rural communities and crippled
county finances. Douglas County in Oregon, for example, has recently
closed its entire public library system because timber sale revenues
that previously funded those libraries and a robust set of other public
services have largely disappeared.
The loss of another 40,000 acres of productive forestlands from
ongoing, active management will cause a further reduction in the supply
of timber sold annually by BLM, which jeopardizes Murphy Company's log
supply and the jobs of over 400 employees at our four Oregon
manufacturing plants. Prohibiting responsible forest management
activities will only exacerbate the forest health crisis already
threatening these forests and neighboring communities.
In expanding the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument almost entirely
with O&C lands managed by BLM, President Obama ignored past legal
advice from the Department of the Interior's Office of Solicitor that a
president has no authority to include in a monument lands which
Congress has clearly designated for another purpose. In 1940, when
President Roosevelt was considering expanding the nearby Oregon Caves
National Monument to include O&C lands, the Solicitor made clear that
the president had no such authority because it would be inconsistent
with the utilization of O&C lands ``as directed by Congress.'' In other
words, the top legal officer in the Department of the Interior
concluded that it was impossible to reconcile the permanent timber
production purpose of the O&C Act with the preservation purpose of the
Antiquities Act. Despite the clarity of this legal advice dating back
to 1940, President Obama forged ahead with a monument expansion that
did not have the support of the local community and which violates the
clear designation of these lands for permanent timber production.
Murphy Company feels so strongly about the illegal character of the
Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument Expansion that it has filed a
lawsuit in Federal court in Oregon seeking a judicial order vacating
President Obama's Proclamation 9564. Two other organizations, the
Oregon Association of O&C Counties (AOCC) and the American Forest
Resource Council (AFRC) have filed their own cases challenging the
Monument Expansion, which are pending in Federal Court in the District
of Columbia. AFRC and AOCC have also submitted written testimony for
this hearing, both of which I hope will be included in the hearing
record.
There is a second way that the Monument Expansion hurts Murphy
Company. One of the strategic approaches that our company has taken to
address the massive decline in Federal timber harvests in southern
Oregon is to invest in the purchase of company timberlands. In 2014, we
purchased almost 50,000 acres of southern Oregon timberland in Jackson,
Josephine, Klamath and Douglas Counties. President Obama's Proclamation
also included 2,101 of these acres within the boundaries of the
expanded Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument. We also own almost 1,900
additional acres that are immediately adjacent to the boundaries of the
Monument Expansion. I know from the experience of timberland owners in
the original Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument that the value and
productivity of private timberland decline significantly whenever those
lands are included within the boundaries of a national monument. Access
is lost because BLM decommissions or abandons its road system within
the Monument and refuses to cooperate with private forestland owners on
road access issues. The private timberland owner within a national
monument also experiences a dramatic increase in the risk of
catastrophic wildfires, insects, and disease outbreaks on monument
forestlands, which will not be actively managed or thinned to address
these risks. This is a very serious threat to our company's
timberlands, which represent a major investment for our company.
In conclusion, Murphy Company appreciates the efforts of the House
Committee on Natural Resources to provide vigorous oversight of
President Obama's use of the Antiquities Act. As the Committee
considers its next steps, please consider writing both President Trump
and Interior Secretary Zinke urging them to direct the Department of
Justice attorneys defending the three lawsuits challenging the Cascade-
Siskiyou Monument expansion to concede that the expansion illegally
included O&C lands.
______
Mr. McClintock. Thank you very much. That concludes the
testimony of our witnesses. We thank them again for being here,
and we will now begin with 5-minute questions, beginning with
the Chairman.
I read in my opening statement the three over-arching
objectives of this Committee: restore public access to the
public lands; restore proper management of the public lands;
and restore the Federal Government as a good neighbor to those
communities affected by the public lands. Governor LePage, I
wonder if you could comment on how the designation in your
state affects these three objectives, starting with public
access.
Governor LePage. Well, I would say this, that I expect that
the endowment for $40 million offered by the Quimby family
would be spent much faster than they anticipate. As compared--I
would like to talk about how Acadia National Park in Maine has
a deferred maintenance backlog in 2015 of over $60 million. And
I want to emphasize Acadia National Park has already burned
down flat back in 1948.
So, I think it is very, very important, and I will tell you
that states manage their forestland much better than the
Federal Government does.
Mr. McClintock. Do you expect to see greater public access
because of the restrictions in the national monument
designation, or----
Governor LePage. No, my original objection to this whole
monument and national park was the fact that the Quimby family,
before it became designated, blocked closed roads, blocked
roads, prevented people from using snowmobiles, ATVs, hunting,
and fishing. So, talk is cheap, actions speak a lot louder.
I would urge this Committee to go to Google Earth, look at
Baxter State Park that abuts the Monument, and then look at
this designation.
Mr. McClintock. Great. Mr. Marshall, could I ask you the
same questions of the designation in Oregon? How does that
affect public access, proper management, and the Federal
Government's relationship with the local communities?
Mr. Marshall. The access is probably going to be little to
no change. There will be less vehicular access, I am sure, over
time. The management of those----
Mr. McClintock. Vehicular access is how people get into
these areas to enjoy them, correct?
Mr. Marshall. Some do. Some walk, as well. I mean, so they
are still going to be open to the public, they are public
lands. But the management of these lands and all the land
adjacent to it, I mean, they are very much overstocked. They
are needing forest restoration enhancements to put some
resiliency back into these forests. We have had major fires all
around the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument. And it is just a
matter of time before they are potentially at risk, as well.
And for us, the restriction of those types of management
activities certainly reduces the amount of land base. And the
land base is what is important, and what drives our economic
engines that support these communities.
Mr. McClintock. That was my next question. You have heard
the testimony, ``Oh, don't worry, even though it is going to
cost a lot of timber and other jobs, it will make it up on the
tourism.'' What we found is restrictions on public use reduce
public visitation, and the jobs we lose are high-paying, full-
time jobs, and they are replaced with low-wage, seasonal jobs.
Is that essentially your observation?
Mr. Marshall. I grew up in these small rural communities
within the Pacific Northwest. As to the loss of jobs, I will
bring one example. I grew up in McCloud. In McCloud, there was
a very vibrant forest products industry--several mills located
within the town. And since then, they have all been washed
away.
And the use of the lands is diminishing quickly. The actual
jobs supported by those responsible industries are gone. There
are three people--plus or minus--in the high school at McCloud
now. It is no longer making families. It is a bedroom
community----
Mr. McClintock. So, people are fleeing.
Mr. Marshall. People are fleeing.
Mr. McClintock. Governor LePage, the research on the deeds
for the Katahdin property, we found that 60 percent of the
National Monument is now closed to hunting, 80 percent is
closed to snowmobiling. Do you expect this access to increase
or decrease?
Governor LePage. I expect it to decrease. And I will say
that I have spent most of my career, prior to becoming governor
of the state of Maine, in the forest products industry. I was
part of a management team that managed over 1 million acres of
land in Maine and in Nova Scotia, purchased many, many acres of
forestland.
And I will say that a working forest is good stewardship,
working forest meaning that you take all--hunting, fishing,
hiking, snowmobiling, all of the above need to be part of the
forest. If you restrict it----
Mr. McClintock. We discovered that in the Sierra, as well.
Mr. St. Clair, final question. According to our staff
report, after your family acquired land for the proposed site,
you evicted campers, burned down cabins, and closed the area to
hunters and to the snowmobilers who had long relied on it for
north-south access. Residents in the surrounding communities
overwhelmingly oppose creating the national park due to
concerns over limiting historic uses, such as snowmobiling and
hunting and the effect of the designation on the local timber
industry. I am out of time, but I don't see how that comports
with public access to the public lands.
And now I will yield to the Ranking Member for 5 minutes.
Ms. Hanabusa. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. St. Clair, maybe you want to comment on what the
Chairman just asked.
Mr. St. Clair. I would like to. When we started a public
research project in 2011 to find out where public interest was
as a respondent to the national monument idea, or the national
park idea, we quickly learned that hunting and snowmobiling
were integral in the cultural heritage of the region.
Therefore, we started advocating for it, so much to the
point where we created the first national park monument that
incorporates and allows for hunting and snowmobiling. We
quickly realized how important it was to the local communities,
and made sure it was protected into perpetuity.
Ms. Hanabusa. Thank you. May I call you Lucas?
Mr. St. Clair. That is fine.
Ms. Hanabusa. Lucas, this is a very unusual situation.
Because, first of all, let's all be clear: the 87,500 acres was
originally private. In other words, your family foundation is
who purchased those lands. Correct?
Mr. St. Clair. That is right.
Ms. Hanabusa. So, unless I am mistaken, I don't believe
Maine has a law--or does it have a law--that would somehow
allow Maine to tell you what to do with your lands.
Mr. St. Clair. It does not.
Ms. Hanabusa. So, whether it has access or not, it would
seem that, since it has become a monument, and it is basically
under the control of the National Park Service, the concerns
that your governor has should be addressed like any other
monument. Because if you were to still hold it, you could deny
access completely. Isn't that correct?
Mr. St. Clair. We could.
Ms. Hanabusa. Now, they also mentioned the fact that you do
not have roads and so forth. That is not correct, as I
understand it, because your family foundation has invested
quite a bit in infrastructure. Could you explain that?
Mr. St. Clair. Sure. We realize that people had not had
access to this land for quite some time, due to the limited
amount of infrastructure. So, over the last 5 years, our family
foundation has invested between $8 and $10 million in
infrastructure, rebuilding roads, widening roads, building
bridges, building viewpoints, bathrooms, campgrounds, boat
launches, et cetera, to make it available for the public. And
in the last 5 years, and, more specifically, in the last 8
months since it became a National Monument, we have had
increased visitation beyond anything that the landscape has
seen.
Ms. Hanabusa. The other interesting component is, even the
fact that you have given the land to the Federal Government,
and it is, by the Antiquities Act, then subject to becoming a
Monument, you, your family--or your foundation--has endowed $40
million for its upkeep and maintenance. Isn't that also
correct?
Mr. St. Clair. That is right.
Ms. Hanabusa. And that is something that is not going to
end because it is a Monument. That is something that is tied to
the fact that it has become a Monument. Isn't that also
correct?
Mr. St. Clair. That is right. We have seen the backlog of
maintenance at other national parks, and recognized that they
needed to be supported both by the Federal Government and also
by the private sector.
Ms. Hanabusa. So, your other governor, your prior governor,
who has probably long passed, is also a very interesting
person, and that is Governor Baxter, who was very committed--he
may not have liked the Federal Government, but he was
definitely committed to the fact that it would always be
preserved in wilderness, and that is the 200,000 acres that he,
in 1931, gave to the state of Maine. Isn't that also correct?
Mr. St. Clair. That is right.
Ms. Hanabusa. And your lands, which have now been the
Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument, is also adjacent
to that. Correct?
Mr. St. Clair. That is right.
Ms. Hanabusa. So, wouldn't it be--for the people of Maine,
and the people of the United States who want to visit, they now
have the benefit of about 28,000, almost 300,000 acres of land
that they can access and visit.
Mr. St. Clair. That is right. And Baxter State Park and
Katahdin Woods and Waters provide a really fantastic complement
to one another.
And the thing that Percival Baxter and our family have in
common is that we bought this land from the timber industry,
from willing sellers, and we were willing buyers. And we paid
fair market value for that land, and then worked long and hard
to put it into the public trust.
And similar to Katahdin Woods and Waters, there was
resistance locally, there was resistance in the legislature,
but ultimately prevailed. And now Baxter State Park, as the
Governor mentioned, is one of our most beloved crown jewels in
the Maine landscape, along with Acadia National Park.
Ms. Hanabusa. And that is exactly how I wanted to end, by
saying that--and I am almost out of time, but I wanted to end
by saying thank you because, believe me, states like Hawaii are
always looking for ways in what we consider the creation of our
legacy lands, and we found that joining with private
foundations who are willing to either buy or share is the best
way that we have been able to accomplish that.
So, thank you very much, and thank your mother, your
foundation. And I yield back.
Mr. McClintock. Thank you. Next the Chair recognizes Mr.
Westerman of Arkansas for 5 minutes.
Mr. Westerman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to
the witnesses for being here today.
Mr. Chairman, monuments are a very important part of our
culture, serving as a reminder of our history, and
memorializing significant historical events. There is probably
no better example of a monument than the large obelisk that is
constructed out on the Mall that we affectionately call the
Washington Monument.
Not long ago, I visited the USS Arizona Memorial
constructed in Pearl Harbor. These cherished monuments and
memorials exemplify the dictionary definition of a monument: a
statue, building, or other structure erected to commemorate a
famous or notable person or event.
The fact that we have living, dynamic forests that are now
being designated as monuments should raise a flag, in of
itself. We have a process to establish parks, reserves, and
wilderness areas. And the fact that we are designating
forestland--which is, again, living and dynamic--a monument,
causes me great concern. It tells me that we are going around
the process and using something that was never intended to set
aside forestland to do just that in the Antiquities Act.
Mr. Marshall, given the challenges facing forests in Oregon
and California, including drought and insects like bark beetle,
what will the elimination of basic forest management techniques
like just even thinning do to the forest health and resiliency?
Mr. Marshall. The pace and scale of the forest management
now is on a pretty slow path, and the expectation to overcome
all the issues associated out there are directly correlated to
your question. I mean we are seeing some minor progression in
the use of forest restoration activities.
But the forests are definitely in decline, from a health
perspective. They are overstocked, they need treatment. The
treatments can be done in a collaborative way, where the
processes get a lot of support. We never can please everybody.
And, certainly in some of the areas we operate, it is more
difficult--southern Oregon being one of those.
Most of our timber sales are under protest, and they
typically--the ones from Federal lands--they typically take a
long time to go through a major litigious process. But in the
absence of the restoration activities, because of the absence
of fire, we definitely have a big backlog that we have to take
care of, or we are going to see more catastrophic fires at a
pace we are not all happy with.
Mr. Westerman. A monument is put in place to preserve. That
is why they are usually built out of stone and metals. But a
forest is dynamic, and it is changing. If we don't protect
forest health--you talked about catastrophic wildfires--what
could essentially happen to these monuments if we get a
catastrophic wildfire?
Mr. Marshall. The wildfires in this particular region can
be extremely large. The monument could burn. I mean it is not
unrealistic to say that the entire Cascade-Siskiyou National
Monument is on a trajectory to potentially burn.
Mr. Westerman. So, we could have a nice charcoal landscape
to memorialize?
Mr. Marshall. We have several hundred thousand acres in
this area that are already that way.
Mr. Westerman. What would be the economic impact to local
communities and small businesses, if a catastrophic wildfire
came through the National Monument?
Mr. Marshall. We have examples right now where the
catastrophic wildfires have been devastating to the
communities----
Mr. Westerman. Do you see a lot of tourist activity, people
going to look at the charred landscape?
Mr. Marshall. Not a lot, no.
Mr. Westerman. Right. So, long after a catastrophic
wildfire has been extinguished, communities can experience the
negative consequences of the wildfire for years to come,
including flooding, mudslides, insect infestations, disease
outbreaks, and land and water degradation impacting communities
and sensitive species alike.
What impact will this designation have on Federal land
managers' ability to mitigate for the consequences of
catastrophic wildfire?
Mr. Marshall. On the Federal lands, there have been little
to no reforestation efforts. So, the lands go into kind of a
natural process of restoring themselves. But it is a very, very
long process, and the process is something that is not
necessarily acceptable and, really, has a negative economic
impact to the long-term sustainability of these rural
communities, especially where they produce jobs in the forest
products industry.
Mr. Westerman. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. McClintock. All right, thank you. Next is Ms. Tsongas.
Ms. Tsongas. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to our
witnesses for being here today. As we discuss the importance of
the Antiquities Act, it is rooted in the fact that our Nation
has made a commitment that our most significant historical,
cultural, and natural sites should be preserved in perpetuity.
That means for generations to come, so that all Americans have
the opportunity to relish that which is ours, and has made us
this uniquely great country.
Since Theodore Roosevelt's designation of the first
national monument, presidents from both parties have used the
Antiquities Act to protect some of America's best-known and
loved landscapes, as well as cultural sites. Many national
monuments created through the Antiquities Act have since become
some of our greatest national parks. So, they are just a step
along the way.
Not only do national monuments protect our Nation's most
treasured public lands, but they also directly benefit rural
economies. Headwaters Economics, a non-partisan, independent
think tank from Montana, found that, on average, counties with
protected public lands, including national monuments, see
increased economic performance, including increased employment,
personal income, and growth in population.
A study released by the Small Business Majority also found
that national monuments designated by President Obama have
provided significant boost to small businesses in rural
communities who are otherwise suffering, driving $156 million
in annual revenue, and creating more than 1,800 jobs a year.
I also want to emphasize that the Antiquities Act may only
be used to create national monuments on existing Federal lands.
No monument designation has ever been used to seize private
property, and it does not change what a private landowner can
or cannot do on their private land. This is not a land grab.
In some cases, land has been generously donated to the
Federal Government, and then designated as a National Monument.
And we are fortunate to have you, Lucas St. Clair, here with us
today, whose family has made a once-in-a-generation gift to the
American people, and will continue to support the Monument with
a $40 million endowment, a very generous act, indeed.
So, Mr. St. Clair, I want to go back to the discussion of
the public outreach process leading up to President Obama's
designation last summer, and your outreach in crafting the
private land donation that would be made to the Federal
Government. You mentioned in your testimony that your focus
from the start was to engage the local community in building
support for the Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument.
So, can you reiterate how you engaged with the public? And
as you did, give some examples of the specific problems that
were identified as a result of that outreach and how, as a
result of that, you were able to resolve differences in the
public?
For example, you have talked about the reduction in
acreage. You have talked about allowing snowmobiling and
hunting, initially not something that was top of mind. So how,
in the course of that public outreach, you were able to hear
what people had to say, and then come to some accommodation.
Mr. St. Clair. Sure. In the winter of 2012, we began by
having listening sessions in the Katahdin region. We had 4
focus groups and 80 in-depth interviews with stakeholders
throughout the northern Penobscot County. We learned that size
was important. It couldn't be too big. It couldn't infringe on
the forest products industry. The hunting, fishing, and
snowmobiling were vital to the region and the outdoor economy
in the region, so we knew all those things were very important.
And to be clear, we started this as a legislative
objective. We worked with our congressional delegation for 4
years, drafting legislation that we hoped would be introduced
into Congress. This is the way we felt would be the most
effective and the most transparent process.
We worked with our congressional delegation until the
summer of 2015, when they had decided they did not feel
comfortable introducing legislation. So, at that point we let
them know that we were going to start working with the White
House to see if they would be willing to take this gift.
With our first meetings with the White House, they told us,
``It is very generous. However, you have to prove that there is
public support.'' That public support then took a year to
identify, and it was with public meetings, town hall listening
sessions, letters to the editor, letters to the congressional
delegation, to the White House, and to the Department of the
Interior.
Over the course of that year, we were able to show hundreds
of interest groups, sportsmen organizations, businesses, and
individuals who supported it, and ultimately, were able to take
all of the public use and access into account, and shape
something that was very unique to the Katahdin region, and
incorporated all of the things that people wanted.
Mr. McClintock. All right, thank you very much. The
gentlelady's time has expired.
I should note it is traditional on this Committee to
introduce Members in order of seniority. But those lists are
occasionally modified by the Majority or the Minority. So, we
will next go to Mr. Pearce.
Mr. Pearce. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate each one
of you being here today.
First I would like to submit for the record 29 letters of
support of reducing the footprint of the Organ Mountains
National Monument.
Mr. McClintock. Without objection.
Mr. Pearce. When it was announced that there was an ongoing
effort almost 12 years ago in the Organ Mountains, pretty early
on we submitted a bill of 60,000 acres that protected the
footprint of the Organs.
That was then sort of the small position in the whole
discussion that lasted for almost a decade. And even when the
Democrats had full control and a filibuster-proof Senate, they
could not pass the big, expansive bill that eventually got put
into place by Executive Order because they knew the local
people were in deep disregard of the 600,000 acres that
eventually got put into the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks
National Monument. The consensus in the community was, yes, we
want to protect that, but we also don't want to take away the
economic potential. So, I hear this mantra, that if you have
public lands your pay increases. It is one of the strong
Democrat counties in my district that keeps pointing out--Grant
County is the home to the Gila National Forest, or the Gila
Wilderness. That was the first wilderness put into protected
status. And they tell me, ``We don't need more wilderness here,
because that is choking off our economic potential.'' That is
in an area that typically doesn't look at things from a
Republican point of view, and yet they are alarmed at this grab
going on by the government that has played out in the West. The
economic potential does not increase.
In fact, the day the Executive Order was signed that set
aside the desert, the Organ Mountains, then the largest kind of
off-road competition in the entire Nation decided to leave the
area, and they announced they were pulling out. Because of that
designation, they would have been able to get in and do their
off-road sport, but it just was not going to be worth the
effort.
That cost the local community of Las Cruces $5 million
right off the bat. And that has not been replaced. The ranchers
invite me out to look through the 600,000 acres and see if
there are any cars out there at all. We will drive around it,
and we will be the only car there. I will just tell you that
when you get past Texas into these wide-open lands of the West,
they are pretty routine, and people don't come out to look at
the sagebrush.
So, I think all that is being suggested in this discussion
in the hearing and then later, in the presidential actions, is
just to retreat back to the footprint that the law initially
calls for. The law says you can protect objects. But again, the
Organ Mountains designation was very light on object
description, and very heavy on prose. And that was what was not
supposed to occur.
So, I do think there is a valid reason for reviewing the
designations, and there is a valid reason for, in certain
cases, when the law has not been followed, that we should, in
fact, reduce the acreage.
Now, Ms. Clarke, you have probably seen as closely as
anyone, as former director of BLM. Can you tell me what your
perspective is on the effect of the public lands in many of
these western states. And I am not talking about oil and gas
lands, and those, just the broad, open ranges. Can you talk a
little bit about how that affects, either plus or minus, the
economies?
Ms. Clarke. Interestingly, I arrived at the BLM at the tail
end of the Clinton administration, and many monuments were
created in the proceeding months. I visited many communities
and their new monuments, and talked to very distressed locals
who were upset about it, who were upset that they were not
consulted, who were concerned about the economic impacts.
Again, I think these communities work to have a good
relationship, and this destroyed all that trust.
Mr. Pearce. I appreciate that. And just one last thing, Mr.
Chairman, before I yield back. The former Sector Chief of both
the El Paso and Tucson sectors of the Border Patrol highlights
how security of the Nation is affected by these designations,
and much of the Organ Mountains Monument lies along our
southern border. So, we see what happens to the Organ Pipes
over in Arizona. That is also going to happen in that
designation.
I thank Ms. Clarke for her comments, and thank the Chairman
for his indulgence. I yield back.
Mr. McClintock. Thank you. Next is Mr. Grijalva.
Mr. Grijalva. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And welcome,
Governor LePage.
My question is, one of the aims of our system of national
monuments is to protect and interpret historic, scientific, and
environmental assets that need to be protected in perpetuity.
Those assets include cultural, ethnic diversity, identity. Do
you, as governor, agree that this is an important goal?
Governor LePage. Let me qualify this by saying I think
preservation for a forest is devastating. I think conservation
of a forest is the proper way to approach it. I think a forest
is like a garden----
Mr. Grijalva. I know, but my time is--Governor, my
question----
Governor LePage. From a cultural point of view, this
monument is doing just the opposite of what Maine is used to
with its culture. We have had----
Mr. Grijalva. Well, this hearing is about the Antiquities
Act, and it is particular to the designation that just occurred
in your state. But do you think it is important to protect
iconic places that tell the story of, for instance, civil
rights, gay rights in this country?
Governor LePage. Oh, absolutely. I believe that it is
important to protect the culture of the United States. And this
designation does not do that.
Mr. Grijalva. Just for my own, and the Committee's, what
percentage, Governor, of your state's income is based on
tourism, if you were to----
Governor LePage. I am sorry, I didn't----
Mr. Grijalva. What percentage of your state's income is
based on tourism?
Governor LePage. I couldn't tell you that, sir. Between
tourism and pulp and paper, I would say tourism probably has a
slight edge, but we are still the Number 3 largest paper
producer in the United States of America.
Mr. Grijalva. If I may, Ms. Clarke, is it true that no
administration, whether it is the Grand Staircase or now the
discussion about Bears Ears--that no administration, including
the one in which you served, has ever attempted to revoke a
monument, an existing monument?
Ms. Clarke. That is my understanding.
Mr. Grijalva. Do you believe the president, this president,
has the authority to unilaterally abolish national monuments?
Ms. Clarke. That notion has not been challenged in court.
So, I am not going to opine as to whether he has that authority
or not.
Mr. Grijalva. And, Secretary Zinke, in the review that was
mandated to him by the President of the designations for the
last 10 years of national monuments, do you think, as you
indicated in part of your testimony, do you think that the
Secretary on this review is going to do and recommend to the
President, should he have public hearings in all of these
sites, all 20, 30 that he is reviewing, public hearings, 1, 2
in each one?
Ms. Clarke. He has been given a very limited time to
complete a very demanding process, and I don't know how that
will be designed. I am sure he will be reaching out to people
in communities.
Mr. Grijalva. Thank you. To the whole panel, one of the
biggest threats, if not the biggest threat, to our public lands
is climate change. And we just witnessed this week millions of
Americans calling for action on climate change.
Though I oppose President Trump's Executive Order on
monuments, do members of today's panel think these reviews
should focus on the growing negative impacts of climate change
on our parks and national monuments--I will go down the line,
beginning with the Governor, if you don't mind, sir.
Governor LePage. I would say that climate change has a big
impact on our planet. But even worse is poor management of our
forests.
Mr. Grijalva. So, that would be a yes?
Governor LePage. No. I would say that more important than
climate change to our existing forests, particularly in Maine,
is the management of our forests, which preservation does not
do.
Mr. Grijalva. Please, Ms. Clarke----
Ms. Clarke. I am not sure that any of the monument managers
or those states can avoid the changes in climate. And,
obviously, those are going to be a consideration in management
decisions.
Mr. Grijalva. Mr. St. Clair?
Mr. St. Clair. I believe the protection of national
monuments, and certainly the national monument that was created
in Maine, provides fantastic adaptation and mitigation for
climate change, going forward, yes.
Mr. Grijalva. Sir?
Mr. Marshall. I think forest conservation, as the Governor
said, is an important part of the absolute mandates that need
to be addressed, because forest conservation will be a part of
the discussion in climate change, absolutely. Preservation
typically leads, in our area, to a catastrophic fire, which has
a massive release of carbon.
Mr. Grijalva. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. One yes, one almost
yes, and two maybes.
[Laughter.]
Mr. McClintock. And no more time. Next is Chairman Bishop.
Mr. Bishop. I appreciate all of you being here. Many of you
had difficulty with our names. I want you all to know that you
got the name Bishop correct.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Bishop. Thanks for everything.
Kathleen, let me talk to you first. Amongst your resume,
you were the Federal Bureau of Land Management Director here in
Washington between the monuments--the designation of Grand
Staircase and the Bears Ears catastrophe. I have 20 minutes of
questions I am going to get done in 4 minutes and 34 seconds
with all of you, so I am going to do these quickly.
Ms. Clarke, the Utah Geological Survey estimated that the
State School Trust Fund had about $17 to $25 billion worth of
potential revenue coming from Grand Staircase-Escalante. What
could that have done to the school kids of Utah?
Ms. Clarke. That would have been an absolute boon to the
kids, and they desperately are in need of increased funding.
Mr. Bishop. So, SSTL, or the State School Trust Lands, has
only 6 percent of Utah. But in Bears Ears, there are 109,000
acres of SSTL lands that are locked in there with nothing else
to do about it. What is that going to do to the trust fund for
the school kids of Utah?
Ms. Clarke. Well, clearly, that is going to, again,
diminish opportunity. And that is a very significant part of
the expectations for budget revenue.
Mr. Bishop. And I did just talk to Representative Pearce
while he was here.
And to Ms. Tsongas, your statement that there were no
private lands, that is inaccurate. There are 8,000 acres of
private lands that are locked up in the New Mexico one, within
the boundaries, that have not been adjudicated, they don't know
how to try and get that through. That is why Antiquities Act
designations are so desperately bad.
Ms. Clarke, let me come back to you. The Grand Staircase-
Escalante designation--when that happened, there were 81
grazing jobs that were lost, as well as the shutdown of a plant
where 1,100 jobs were lost.
Ms. Clarke. Eleven hundred jobs. The grazing----
Mr. Bishop. Is there anything in the tourism community that
has equaled that down there?
Ms. Clarke. No, it certainly has not substituted. There are
a lot of part-time tourism jobs, taking care of activities in
motels and restaurants. But those are seasonal. You go to some
of these little communities in December, you cannot even find a
place to eat.
Mr. Bishop. Let's go to San Juan County, then. It has one
national monument, one national forest, one national recreation
center, three national monuments. Despite that, it is still the
poorest county in the state of Utah. It has doubled the
unemployment rate, or the people living in poverty in Utah.
Will one more national monument help that county prosper?
Ms. Clarke. Absolutely not.
Mr. Bishop. And that is the bottom line of what we are
doing.
Governor, let me thank you once again for being here, and I
appreciate it very much. If I could ask you a couple of simple
questions. When Pew did their environmental report on this--on
what you have up there, they had some negative things to say
about it. And one of the things they said, ``Nonetheless,
unless a long-standing tradition is suddenly broken, creating
any new Federal designation regarding the level of protection
it provides must have the backing of key local and statewide
constituencies, and a majority of Maine's political leaders.''
``Based on our''--this is still Pew--``Based on our
interviews, we do not find a strong core support for creating a
national park in Maine's north woods, or any new Federal
designation for land in that region.'' Are they off point?
Governor LePage. No, they are right on the money. Matter of
fact, one of my recommendations to this Committee and to the
Congress is, if you are going to do anything with the
Antiquities Act, make sure that the state in which the
monuments or the parks are going to be designated from, that
they have a dialogue with their legislature, with the public,
and with the governor.
Mr. Bishop. So, let me get this right. The governor posed
it, the state passed a bipartisan bill against the monuments.
The Senators and the Congressmen sent letters expressing
serious concerns about the reservation--73 out of 75 local
elected officials opposed the National Monument in the only
Park Service listening session that they had up there.
We have something here that--this was created by fiat.
Nobody in the delegation, who actually even introduced a study
resolution--and I appreciate the fact that some of the people
in Maine wouldn't take no for an answer, but that was
essentially the no.
Also, the Elliotsville Plantation, Incorporated did an
evaluation on a proposed national park up there. And their
evaluation judged the proposal met in all aspects and criteria
except for feasibility. Do you believe that the Elliotsville
Plantation did not press the Members of Congress to introduce a
bill on feasibility because their own report said they did not
meet the needs of that study?
Governor LePage. They did not meet the needs.
Mr. Bishop. I am sorry, that was--thank you. You gave a
short answer; I gave a long question. There are more long
questions to do in the next 19 seconds. No, I can't do it.
Mr. St. Clair, I do have a question for you. Thank you for
being here. I wish you had been at the other, earlier hearing
that we had that you called a sham. I am glad that you are
finally here for this one. But there are some concepts I have
specifically about the $40 million, as well as some of the
concepts you said about deeds. And I will be asking that at a
later time, or maybe for the record. I yield back.
Mr. McClintock. Thank you.
Mr. Panetta.
Mr. Panetta. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
First of all, thanks to all four of you for being here,
taking the time and the preparation to come here. I know it can
be difficult. So, thank you very much; I appreciate it.
I hail from the central coast of California, the 20th
congressional district there--Monterey, Santa Cruz, Salinas,
what I would consider one of the most beautiful areas in the
Nation. And I think, because of that, we have had three
national monuments in my district: the Fort Ord National
Monument; the California Coastal National Monument; and
recently we had the Pinnacles National Monument, which then
became the 59th State Park recently, the latest state park--
national park, excuse me, the Pinnacles National Park.
All three of those national monuments contributed greatly,
and continue to contribute greatly to the economic and
environment impact of that area. There is no doubt about it. I
mean if you look at the Fort Ord National Monument, which was
created--20,000 acres created on the former Fort Ord, now we
have biking, we have hiking, we have horseback riding, we have
trail guides, and have a number of businesses and a number of
jobs that have been created because of that national monument.
Pinnacles now-National Park has an economic impact of over
$13 million to the local communities each year. Yes, mainly,
that can be contributed to the fact that it became a national
park recently. But there were a number of visitors there,
prior, when it was a national monument.
And environmentally, it is where my family, my grandfather,
who was an Italian immigrant, came to that area. My father was
raised there, I was raised there, my daughters are going to be
raised there. I look at these national monuments. They are
basically living postcards that we can send to our future
generations. And I am fortunate for that.
So I feel, despite what we have heard today, that, at least
on the central coast of California, there are a number of
benefits that these national monuments can have on certain
areas. So, I guess my question would be to Mr. St. Clair, what
would you say would be the positive economic benefits, or
environmental benefits, to the national monuments that you
discussed earlier?
Mr. St. Clair. Well, the National Monument that was created
in Maine lives in the National Park System, and so the
legislation that created the National Park Service, the Organic
Act, says to conserve unimpaired for future generations and
enjoyment.
So, not only does it talk about the conservation
implications, but it is for people. And that is the piece that
brings people and jobs and boosts the economy around national
parks. We are very fortunate to have those benefits, and in the
short 8 months since the creation, already have started to feel
the increase in visitation and the increase in jobs.
Mr. Panetta. Great. Now, you talked earlier about--a
question was posed to you about the input that you received
from the local communities, correct?
Mr. St. Clair. Yes.
Mr. Panetta. And you actually did polling, as well, is that
true?
Mr. St. Clair. Several polls, yes.
Mr. Panetta. How did that turn out?
Mr. St. Clair. They were never--they were always in
support. And, as the years went on, support increased.
Mr. Panetta. The information that you gathered from your
outreach and input that you took in from the local communities,
did you provide that to the executive branch when you were
lobbying them?
Mr. St. Clair. Absolutely. And, to make the point more
clear, the report that Pew did that was referenced by Chairman
Bishop was done in 2011. That was when I began work in the
Katahdin region. And to see our body of work was the amount of
support that started with very little in 2011 to a lot in
August of 2016.
Mr. Panetta. Great. Thank you. I appreciate it. And, once
again, thanks to all four witnesses.
Mr. St. Clair. Absolutely.
Mr. Panetta. I yield back my time.
Mr. McClintock. Thank you. Next is Congressman Thompson.
Mr. Thompson. Thank you, Chairman. And thanks to the
members of the panel that are here.
Mr. Marshall, according to your testimony, the entire
public library system in Douglas County needed to be shut down
for the lack of revenue from the Federal forests. If this
expansion results in further decline of timber production, what
other public services could the surrounding communities lose?
Mr. Marshall. Yes, you are referencing the O&C lands. The
O&C lands directly--the funds from the timber harvest paid by
the timber companies go directly into the counties for funding
for essential public services, including libraries, police
protection, and other things like street maintenance, et
cetera.
There is a full suite of public services that, as the land
base continues to diminish, and the outputs continue to go
down, that are impacted directly by the lack of funding.
Mr. Thompson. Because of the decline in revenues and
increased restrictions in the national monument, much of the
infrastructure is either deteriorating or blocked off by the
BLM. In the event of a catastrophic wildfire, what challenges
could this create for firefighters?
Mr. Marshall. Infrastructure is critically important to
initial attack to put out these fires. The first designation of
the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument included an expansion
into the wilderness and further putting roads back off the
grid, actually decommissioning roads throughout the landscape.
So, initial attack becomes a very big challenge. In our western
forest landscapes, if you are not there in the first critical
moments of a fire, the expansion becomes very fast and very
aggressive in these overstocked forest stand conditions.
Mr. Thompson. With your background and, Governor LePage,
your background in forest products, isn't it true that a forest
that has good, healthy, active management is basically a carbon
sink? It is not carbon-neutral, it is carbon-negative, whereas
a forest that is locked up, preservation, unattended to, not
actively managed actually becomes a carbon emitter? Is that
correct?
Governor LePage. That is correct. As I tried to say
earlier, a forest is like a garden. It just takes a lot of
years to grow. If it is not properly managed, it will get
weeds, you get blow-downs, dead wood, it covers the bottom
floor. It becomes a very, very risky proposition, and a nasty
objection that I have to preservation versus conservation.
Conservation keeps a healthy forest, keeps the young growth
healthy and growing, keeps the older growth, the class balance
of your forest growing.
A working forest has a good class-age distribution. And
that is what I think you lack when you preserve. And you can
see that in some of our national parks, and that is why some of
the wildfires we have are catastrophic.
Mr. Thompson. Some have said that the forest products
industry is in decline, but the mills still provide good jobs
in this area. And Maine's forest products industry contributes
$8 billion annually to the economy, based on what I read. How
does this designation affect local businesses struggling to
survive and limit future growth in the forest product industry,
and Maine, generally?
Governor LePage. Well, particularly in this area, here,
right now we have on the drawing board a very large investment
that is being proposed. The problem is you are taking land out
of production that is near to this facility.
This region of Millinocket, East Millinocket and Medway,
has been hit very, very severely with the loss of two paper
mills. We have investors interested in coming back to the
region, but they need to have the availability of resource.
With the Baxter State Park and the Monument, it is taking a lot
of land off the rolls. And therefore, they are just going to
have to look at other areas, which leaves this particular area
vulnerable for growth.
Mr. Thompson. Thank you, Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. McClintock. Thank you. Next, Mr. Brown of Maryland.
Mr. Brown. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do want to thank the
members of the panel. This hearing is focused primarily on
large-scale monuments, specifically on large forests and the
management of and public access to them. However, the Executive
Order on the review of designations under the Antiquities Act
includes a confusing clause that leaves open the possibility of
a review of any monument of any size declared since 1996 that
the Secretary personally determines was established without
sufficient local input. This leaves any monument open to
review.
Maryland is home to both the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal
National Historic Park and the Harriet Tubman Underground
Railroad National Historic Park. Like many national parks,
these areas first began as monuments created by presidents
under the Antiquities Act, to be preserved for their historic
and cultural significance. The use of the Antiquities Act made
certain that these areas would be preserved in the public
domain indefinitely, and to be kept accessible for generations
to come, so that they could experience that cultural and
historical significance.
Monuments such as those for Harriet Tubman are particularly
important. National monuments tell our story, as Americans.
And, as of 2014, only 26 monuments recognized the achievements
of the African-American community; 19 monuments for the Latino
community; and 8 for women. The Antiquities Act is a critical
tool used in ensuring under-represented communities are
commemorated for their contributions to American history.
In addition to the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad
National Monument, President Obama used the Act for sites
commemorating Cesar Chavez, a National Monument in California;
Colonel Charles Young and the Charles Young Buffalo Soldiers
National Monument in Ohio; the Belmont-Paul Women's Equality
National Monument in Washington, DC; the Hanalei National
Monument in Hawaii; and the Stonewall National Monument in New
York. Together, these tell the diverse story of America,
interwoven from the experience of so many different people from
all nationalities, creeds, and backgrounds.
Mr. Chairman, I now ask unanimous consent to enter into the
record testimony from Ms. Stephanie Meeks, President and CEO of
the National Trust for Historic Preservation. In her testimony,
Ms. Meeks further outlines the need to protect the Antiquities
Act to preserve our national landscapes, as well as our
cultural monuments that show who we are, as a country, and how
far we have come.
[Pause]
Mr. Brown. Unanimous consent to enter----
Mr. McClintock. Oh, I am sorry----
Mr. Brown. No, that is OK.
Mr. McClintock. Yes, without objection.
Mr. Brown. OK, Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my
time.
Mr. McClintock. OK. That is what I was waiting for. Next is
Mr. Labrador.
Mr. Labrador. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for
holding this hearing today. And thank you, all of you, for
being here.
Since I was first elected to Congress in 2010, I have
introduced legislation in each Congress to amend the
Antiquities Act. I know that I am not the only Member who has
introduced legislation related to this. But, Governor, you will
be happy to know that I am reintroducing my bill today that
will require states to approve monument----
Governor LePage. Thank you.
Mr. Labrador. And I hope that we can have a hearing soon on
it, and have it pass in the Senate.
I am pleased that last week President Trump ordered a
review of national monument designations designated by his
predecessors. But we cannot stop there. I am hopeful that this
Congress will build on the President's actions and re-assert
its authority over our public lands, and pass legislation to
permanently reform the Antiquities Act.
Individuals who live near our public lands and state and
local elected officials know how to best protect our cherished
lands more than any bureaucrat in Washington, DC, or any think
tank, or any other group like that, or even the President of
the United States. We must make sure that those who live and
work on and near our public lands have a voice when it comes to
decisions regarding the designation of national monuments.
Governor, did the state of Maine or any of the localities
around the Monument support President Obama's decision to
designate the National Monument?
Governor LePage. Not that I am aware of. It was not a very
pleasant time for the state. In fact, they had a public hearing
at the University of Maine in Orono about the Monument. People
were bussed in, proponents were bussed in, while the opponents
had to come at their own expense. And that was telling, really
telling to me, when you have to bus people in from southern
Maine up to the university, so that you can have a public
hearing, and then most of the people that showed up were people
from the general community, surrounding communities, who were
opposed to having it.
Mr. Labrador. But Mr. St. Clair just said that all their
data shows that the public supported it.
Governor LePage. Well, I'll tell you, he also said--I heard
somebody say that information was given to the executive, and
that is clearly not true. I just met Mr. St. Clair for the
first time this morning.
Mr. Labrador. Were you or any other state or local elected
officials involved in the development of the proposal?
Governor LePage. No. And when Secretary Salazar came to
Maine to visit, they deliberately forgot to invite the
Governor's Office or to let the executive know he was in town.
Mr. Labrador. Because governors don't matter that much,
right?
Governor LePage. That is right.
Mr. Labrador. Were you asked to provide feedback as the
Monument was being developed?
Governor LePage. No, never.
Mr. Labrador. What recourse do you have, now that President
Obama has designated the Monument?
Governor LePage. The only recourse, I believe, the solid
recourse would be Congress changing the Antiquities Act and
taking a hard look at it. Second--because I do believe that if
a president can unilaterally take action, then I think another
president should also be able to take unilateral action.
Mr. Labrador. According to Mr. St. Clair, there have been a
bunch of jobs created because of the Monument. What has been
your experience, as the governor of the state?
Governor LePage. Well, the area that he is speaking about
is one of the highest unemployment areas in the state of Maine.
And I will say this--the state of Maine's unemployment right
now is at 3 percent, which is very, very pleasant. And we are
trying to get people to Maine to take some of these jobs.
So, I will say this to Mr. St. Clair. The growth in the
state of Maine is on the coast. Between May 31 and Labor Day we
will have 40 million visitors, but they will be to the coast.
Very few are going to be in the----
Mr. Labrador. Ms. Clarke, again, thank you for being here
to testify. Based on your experiences in Utah, does the
creation of a national monument boost economic activity?
Ms. Clarke. I do not believe it does at all, because it
shuts down the kind of economic activity that pays good jobs
and supports families.
Mr. Labrador. Can you provide some examples of the negative
economic impacts of national monument designations?
Ms. Clarke. Gateway communities near the Grand Staircase
National Monument are dying. Last year, the County
Commissioners in Garfield County sent a letter to the Governor,
asking him to declare a school disaster, an education disaster
in the county, because his schools have lost so many students
that they are not getting enough funding to keep them
supported. Right now there are only 57 students in those
schools. Families are leaving.
Mr. Labrador. Are there better ways to protect these areas,
instead of a designation of a national monument?
Ms. Clarke. You know, these areas in Utah are bold and they
are not going anywhere. They are not fragile. And the locals
have been there and cared for them for generations.
I think, as I stated in my testimony, the designation, if
anything, brings folks in and they do more harm than good.
Mr. McClintock. Thank you.
Mr. Labrador. All right, thank you.
Mr. McClintock. Next is Mrs. Torres.
Mrs. Torres. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. St. Clair, it seems that we are playing a little bit
what came first, the chicken or the egg, here. And it has me a
little bit confused as to exactly how much public input--it
appeared from your statement that community went all out and
provided for a lot of input.
Can you respond to some of the comments that were made by
the Governor? Oftentimes, our big egos in government get hurt
if we don't receive a special invitation. Was he not given a
special invitation to attend any of these hearings?
Mr. St. Clair. Well, we did reach out to the Governor's
Office a number of times, and he was invited to all the public
meetings, including the field hearing that this Committee had
in the Katahdin region, where the Governor did come.
I had met with his chief counsel every day a number of
times, sat next to him at the public meeting that Senator King
and Director Jarvis had in Orono, and sent numerous letters of
support from the local chambers of commerce, Rotary, hospital
boards, and elected officials from the Katahdin region and
Penobscot County directly to the Governor.
So, we had done our best to make clear that support was
there and, in fact, growing.
Mrs. Torres. So, in your opinion, the community came out to
build up this monument, to create something to leave back for
future generations? It appears to me now, in hearing some of
the testimony and some of the comments, that this is now a
Congress-created paranoia to tear down this monument, to take
away what the community had built for all of these years of
open hearings and community outreach.
Mr. St. Clair. Yes, that is right. And many of the
community members are here in the audience today who supported
the Monument. And ultimately, we would have liked to have seen
legislation pass through Congress, and that is still our goal.
I think that is the most effective way to do this.
Mrs. Torres. The proclamation for the Katahdin Woods states
that there is significant opportunity for scientific discovery
because much remains to be discovered about Native Americans
who once lived in the area.
How do you respond to the statements that monuments are too
big, when much is unknown still, and this violates the smallest
area compatible portion of the Antiquities Act?
Mr. St. Clair. Well, the exact inverse is true in Maine,
where our initial proposal and the proposal that got public
support was for 150,000 acres. And when we started working with
the White House, they said, ``Look, the only way that we will
do this is if it is the smallest possible area, and only land
owned and donated by your foundation.'' So, ultimately, it
became quite small.
Mrs. Torres. Thank you. I am going to yield my 2 minutes to
our Ranking Member.
Ms. Hanabusa. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I assume that that is
OK with you.
Mr. McClintock. It is.
Ms. Hanabusa. Mr. Chair, one of the things that has been
said is--and we want to clarify this--that in the case of
monuments, just like in parks and forests, they can and do
include what is called Federal in-holdings. The monument does
not alter the rights of those non-Federal owners. And that is
why local landowners support the Cascade--I am going to say
this wrong--Siskiyou Monument.
For that reason, Mr. Chair, I ask that the document,
Cascade-Siskiyou Monument Expansion 2016 Campaign--and these
contain letters of support--be included in the record.
Mr. McClintock. Pronounced Siskiyou.
Ms. Hanabusa. Siskiyou. I got it.
Mr. McClintock. Without objection.
Ms. Hanabusa. Thank you. And I yield back.
Mr. McClintock. Does the gentlelady yield back? Mrs.
Torres?
Mrs. Torres. I will ask one more question.
The mission statement of the Department of the Interior
literally says that the Department protects and manages the
Nation's natural resources and cultural heritage; provides
scientific and other information about those resources; and
honors its trust responsibilities, or special commitments to
American Indians, Alaska Natives, and affiliated island
communities.
Mr. St. Clair, in your opinion, how does the shrinking of,
or rescinding of, a national monument designation help the
agency fulfill its obligations?
Mr. St. Clair. I don't think it would. I think that it is
important that--certainly, the native Penobscots, in the case
of Maine, their sacred land is protected and interpreted to the
best of the agency's ability.
Mrs. Torres. Can you speak to the impact the designation
has for the--I am going to say this probably wrong--Wabanake
people? And particularly the Penobscot Indian Nation.
Mr. McClintock. I am afraid that is going to be a yes or
no. The time has expired.
Mr. St. Clair. It has been positive.
Mrs. Torres. Thank you.
Mr. McClintock. Great, thank you. Next is Mr. Tipton of
Colorado.
Mr. Tipton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for
holding this hearing. I thank our panel for taking the time to
be able to be here.
I would actually like to be able to follow up, because I
think it was a pretty good segue in regards to the Ranking
Member's statement, saying that the designation of a monument
does not alter the rights of the landholders.
Living in Colorado, we have had in-holdings on those lands.
And, Mr. Knox, would you maybe speak to this? I think you had
cited a solicitor general opinion earlier in regards to, once
we have a presidential designation, not going through the
legislative process, not having Congress involved in the
process, you do catch up private lands that are then included
in a designation. Can you speak to that?
Mr. Marshall. I think your question is twofold. The O&C
lands are unique, and they are designated by Congress under the
O&C Act of 1937 to be dedicated to permanent timber production.
That is one question of the president proclaiming them for
another use.
The private landholdings I will speak to. We are an owner
that has the boundaries. The ownership in the Cascade-Siskiyou
National Monument is checkerboard. Within that are access
agreements with the BLM that basically give us opportunities to
move and remove our forest products.
With the access--the management guidelines for the Monument
do not run parallel to the management guidelines of industrial
forests. So, the forests are going to be subject to long-term
restrictions on access and long-term increased threat of
wildfire from the neighbors' activities, which will not be for
forest resiliency and forest health. It will be for forest
preservation.
So, it is true that we still have rights to do some of the
things we want to do removing these lands. But within this
checkerboard--all four of our boundaries of some of our lands
are national monuments now--we are going to see limitations on
access, and we are going to see conflicts with the use next
door.
And I say it simply as, we have the Pacific Crest Trail
that runs through these properties, and they are going to be
walking through one section of a monument at risk to
catastrophic fire. Then, the next section will be industrial
forestlands. They are just not parallel uses.
Mr. Tipton. I don't want to put words in your mouth, and
you can comment on this--would it have been perhaps a more
effective way, a more deliberate way, to--if we were going to
designate an area as a monument, to have gone through the
legislative process to be able to explore some of the
challenges, some of the access issues, some of the cooperation
that you were citing?
Mr. Marshall. Yes, I absolutely believe so. I think a good
forest conservation effort would look at the entire landscape.
It would not just simply recognize section lines.
The process--we did engage with folks and said if we really
are looking at protections, and we are looking at the
scientific and the ecological value structure of these
landscapes, they need to be inclusive of all the lands, not
just necessarily the lands withheld in the ownership.
So, things like trades, boundary adjustments, et cetera
would have been a good thing to have in a discussion in front
of Congress, so that we could have made some progress to make
some of the decisions more clear and more beneficial to the
ecosystem.
Mr. Tipton. Thank you, Mr. Knox.
And Ms. Clarke, maybe you could speak. We happen to have a
common boundary along the Colorado and Utah borders they are
going through. Just exclusive even of a designation process
that is going in, let's go back to what I was just visiting
with Mr. Knox on.
When the President, the executive branch, unilaterally
makes a decision, what forethought is going into what some of
the needs are going to be needed for enforcement, for the
resources that are going to be available to actually address
those needs? Is there any forethought that goes in when we have
unilateral designation by the President?
Ms. Clarke. I doubt there is forethought. There certainly
isn't any provision made for those communities. And they
immediately feel a need for increased police presence. In the
Grand Staircase, they have done a lot of search and rescue.
That is an expensive operation. The communities have people
coming and going. Their waste systems are challenged. But there
is no additional money.
So, I think they do put burdens on those communities, and I
think they are created without regard to those more practical,
mundane situations.
Mr. Tipton. Do you think it would be useful for Congress to
maybe be playing a role, if something is to be designated, does
have community support, to think those issues out beforehand?
Ms. Clarke. I absolutely think Congress should do this. And
if Congress is unwilling, that should send a very clear message
that this is not a good idea, and we should not embrace it
through another means.
Mr. Tipton. Thank you, Ms. Clarke. My time has expired.
I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. McClintock. Great, thank you.
Mr. Huffman.
Mr. Huffman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thanks to our
witnesses here today.
I think it is important to remember that the Antiquities
Act has historically always been a strongly bipartisan piece of
public policy. And it was just a few years ago that I wrote an
Op Ed on the Antiquities Act with a Republican colleague, Chris
Gibson of New York. We talked about not only the conservation
benefits of this legislation, but also the significant economic
boost that it invariably gives to local communities.
Governor LePage, I listened carefully to your testimony,
and I heard you paint a fairly dark picture about the impacts
that some of these out-of-state visitors presumably would bring
to this National Monument. You talked about them being
uninspired by the cutover lands, maybe spilling over and
overburdening the nearby state park. You talked about traffic
and safety implications. It was almost reminiscent of one of
your more colorful statements about outsiders coming into Maine
and causing other problems.
Governor LePage. You mean drug problems?
Mr. Huffman. I am sorry?
Governor LePage. Yes, you are talking about the drug
problem comment?
Mr. Huffman. I did note a similar theme. You didn't
mention----
Governor LePage. People die every day, sir.
Mr. Huffman. You didn't mention impregnating young white
girls, as you did previously. But certainly you are laying a
lot of blame on outsiders coming in to Maine.
And I noted you didn't talk about any benefits at all to
this National Monument designated. Do you see no economic
benefits, no benefits at all to----
Governor LePage. Sir, I will say this. The Acadia National
Park, right now, which is a jewel in the state of Maine, has
$65 million in arrears, and I am afraid what is going to happen
to that park in my lifetime will be what happened in 1948,
because it is not properly managed.
What is going to happen to this Monument, which borders and
abuts one of our jewels in the state of Maine, a State Park, is
going to make it vulnerable to catastrophic fires because, sir,
the Federal Government----
Mr. Huffman. My question, though----
Governor LePage. The Federal----
Mr. Huffman. My question, Mr. Governor, is do you see any
economic benefit----
Governor LePage. Sir, let me finish please.
Mr. Huffman. You have mentioned----
Governor LePage. Let me finish, please.
Mr. Huffman. I heard your testimony about the fire risk.
Governor LePage. Sir----
Mr. Huffman. My question to you is do you see any economic
benefit.
Governor LePage. Not in this area, not in my lifetime.
Mr. Huffman. Thank you.
Governor LePage. Not until this forest grows up again.
Mr. Huffman. Fair enough. Thank you. You also talked about
the trade-off between the tourist economy and pulp and paper.
If you had to look into the future for the economy of Maine, do
you see a lot of upside in paper? Do you see----
Governor LePage. Tissue paper, yes.
Mr. Huffman [continuing]. Paper as a growth industry?
Governor LePage. Tissue paper, yes. I think printing paper,
no.
Mr. Huffman. I noted that a couple years ago we hit peak
paper, and that now, on an annual basis, we and the rest of the
world are consuming less paper each and every year.
Governor LePage. Printing paper.
Mr. Huffman. OK.
Governor LePage. Because nobody is reading newspapers. But
there are all kinds of other papers making--like tissue paper,
paper towels, waxed paper. The economy in Maine--we are now
seeing people going away from plastic in grocery stores, and
coming back to waxed paper.
So, yes, I think there is a big growth in the paper
industry, and I think we should be on the forefront of it.
Mr. Huffman. All right. Mr. St. Clair, could you speak to
this view that there is no upside whatsoever to the monument
designation, only downside?
Mr. St. Clair. Sure. Well, we are already experiencing
increase in visitation, and the economy is starting to come
back through real estate values, through expansion of existing
businesses, and the opening of new businesses. We have seen
that in just the 8 months.
And I also want to be clear, this is not a zero-sum game.
This is not that we cannot have a tourism industry without the
forest products industry, and we cannot have a forest products
industry with a tourism industry. They both work hand in hand.
This is a region that has lost 5,000 jobs in the paper industry
in the last three decades, so attention needs to be brought to
the region, both for new forest products industry jobs and for
tourism.
Mr. Huffman. All right. It has been mentioned that somehow
forestlands are inappropriate for national monument designation
under the Antiquities Act. I just want to point out that I
represent a forest that was one of the first monument
designations, Muir Woods National Monument. That was Teddy
Roosevelt himself who did it in 1908. I think he probably had a
pretty good handle in 1908 about what the Antiquities Act
meant.
And I note that we have numerous times since then
designated forests. I know that Giant Sequoia National Monument
is another great example. If I could, in the remaining seconds,
what is so special about these forestlands?
I know that Gifford Pinchot himself was inspired by the
fact that we had abused a lot of the Northeast forests and
created the National Forest Service. Why do you and your family
want to protect these forestlands?
Mr. St. Clair. It is not only the----
Mr. McClintock. The gentleman's time has expired, so be
very brief.
Mr. St. Clair. Sure. It is one of the last intact forests
in the East. It has incredible waterways--the Penobscot, the
Seboeis streams--and an incredible amount of cultural heritage,
including a place where a young Theodore Roosevelt learned
about being an outdoorsman.
Mr. McClintock. Thank you. Mr. Gosar.
Dr. Gosar. I thank the gentleman. The President's ability
to set aside land for monuments and national parks comes from
the outdated Antiquities Act of 1906, which was originally
intended to protect prehistoric Indian ruins and artifacts on
Federal lands in the West.
More than 100 years later, the original intent of this law,
which included language to limit these designations to the
smallest area compatible with proper care and management of the
objects, has been significantly abused.
Would the staff bring up the first graphic.
[Slide]
Dr. Gosar. This is a pie chart compiled from information
the Washington Post obtained from the Department of the
Interior. And as you can see, this 1906 law has been abused by
presidents of both parties.
However, President Obama exceeded the intent of the
Antiquities Act more than any other president in the history of
this country.
And now the second one.
[Slide]
Dr. Gosar. Wow. During his presidency, President Obama
designated or expanded 34 national monuments, locking up 544.7
million acres of water, and 8.8 million acres of land. In the
past, national monument designations on the Antiquities Act
have significant consequences, negatively affecting grazing
rights, water rights, wildfire prevention management, as well
as hunting, fishing, and other recreational activities.
Ms. Clarke, recently, former Secretary Sally Jewell was
quoted by the Salt Lake City Tribune as saying, ``Every member
of Utah's delegation and Governor's office knew for years we
would use the Antiquities Act by the end of the Obama
administration if they were not successful at getting
legislation passed. None of this was a surprise.''
However, when I asked Secretary Jewell in a March 2016
hearing whether the President intended to use the Antiquities
Act, she said he had given her absolutely zippo about what
designations he planned to make.
Given your expertise in the Governor's Office, and the
former BLM's director, can you describe the amount of
transparency the Administration had before this designation?
Ms. Clarke. My understanding is it was zero. I believe
there was a report put out by the Minority party that detailed
a whole lot of exchange of information and e-mails. That had
nothing to do with the monument designation. Those were all
about something called the Public Land Initiative that was a
grassroots effort to find ways to both conserve areas and make
other areas available for development or community expansion.
So----
Dr. Gosar. Did they consult with your office about maps,
legal descriptions, specific details of the proposal before the
designation?
Ms. Clarke. Absolutely not. We heard none of that.
Dr. Gosar. Well, that is enlightening. Because also in
March of 2016, I pressed BLM Director Neil Kornze on the
coordination between the White House, Federal land management
agencies, Democrats, and extremist environmental groups.
Director Kornze initially testified that no coordination was
taking place.
When I reminded him that he was under oath, and asked if my
FOIA request would support his statements, his face went pale.
He mumbled something about maybe they had a few meetings, and
then he subsequently refused to testify before Congress ever
again.
I would now like to submit minutes obtained from the Grand
Canyon Trust October 2016 meeting for the record.
Mr. McClintock. Without objection.
Dr. Gosar. The minutes show coordination was taking place
between the Obama administration, Federal land management
agencies, and environmental groups.
Specifically on page 35, the minutes reference a proposed
1.7 million-acre monument in Arizona, stating, ``The Grand
Canyon Trust is now playing a central role in the campaign,
coordinating closely with Congressman Grijalva's office, Sierra
Club leadership, and leadership with the Department of the
Interior and the Department of Agriculture.''
Ms. Clarke, is it safe to say that, rather than
coordinating with states and local stakeholders like they
should have been, the Obama administration instead was
coordinating with special interest groups that supported the
misguided far-left agenda in order to lock up more land and
water?
Ms. Clarke. I absolutely concur.
Dr. Gosar. Now I am going to end with my long last
question. Mr. St. Clair, let's do a civics lesson.
The Antiquities is an Executive Order, is it not?
Mr. St. Clair. That is right.
Dr. Gosar. So, it can be rescinded by an Executive Order,
right?
Mr. St. Clair. I don't believe it can.
Dr. Gosar. Yes, it can. And so can Congress. As any other
aspect that we have seen with an Executive Order, one Executive
Order can trump another one. The only thing is it just has not
been done. Let's get back to civics.
I yield back.
Mr. McClintock. Thank you. Next is Mr. Beyer.
Mr. Beyer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, very much. And thank
all of you for being here. I have almost as many questions as
Chairman Bishop, so I would appreciate maybe one-paragraph
answers.
Mr. Marshall, did the Pacific Crest Trail Community support
the monument designation? And are you really making the case
that those hikers and riders would rather ride through your
cutoff lands, rather than the parks and the monuments?
Mr. Marshall. I don't know what they represented. But I
will tell you--a managed forest for conservation values can be
just as attractive as an industrial forest. And the Pacific
Crest Trail folks may or may not want to walk through fire-
prone landscape. But if they do, the landscapes over time are
going to change.
Mr. Beyer. It seems like the common theme here from the
Majority witnesses is catastrophic fires. The last Ice Age
ended 11,000 years ago. Forestry came to this country 300, 400
years ago. What about those intervening 10,500 years? What did
we do about catastrophic fires then? Why does nature somehow
now require men to manage it?
Mr. Marshall. Because men stopped the fire cycle, and the
fire cycle was very important to the resiliency of the forest.
We, as citizens, decided that fire was not attractive, so we
stopped managing the forests, and letting them progress
naturally. So, now the forests have grown in. It is like the
Governor said, it is a garden. And we have let the garden
become overstocked. And those overstocked gardens need to be
managed, and they need to be put back on a trajectory so that
they are healthy.
And you know what? We, as citizens, love to have forest
products in our buildings, in our homes, so we need to have
some sort of----
Mr. Beyer. I am not a professional forester, but why not
allow the fire cycle to continue, as is happening in many
places around the world?
Mr. Marshall. I think what you see is these catastrophic
fires are truly that. I mean it is not just a simple term to
use. They are burning at a rate that is unnatural. So, the
process of elimination of fire is an unnatural consequence, and
we are seeing some of these things lead to deforestation. The
forests are not coming back in these landscapes.
Mr. Beyer. Mr. St. Clair, how do you reconcile the positive
polling the new Katahdin worked with the referenda in East
Millinocket-Medway----
Mr. St. Clair. Well, the votes that were taken in those
three towns were a small fraction of the total population of
the town, so it was not a great representation of the
population.
Mr. Beyer. Could your family simply not have put a
permanent easement on those 90,000 acres, also?
Mr. St. Clair. We could have. We could have also blocked
access--I mean it was private property. We could have done just
about whatever we wanted with it.
Mr. Beyer. Governor, you mentioned that, in trying to
attract a forester back to Maine, that it was sort of sad that
Baxter State Park and the new Katahdin Monument took all that
forestry out----
Governor LePage. Well, Baxter State Park does cut logs.
They manage the forest. So, that is a working forest. It is
different than the Federal Government, where they make it in
preservation. Baxter State Park does allow for management.
Mr. Beyer. Ms. Clarke, in your testimony you talked about--
let me see if I can quote--that increased access, increased
visitation, leads to greater desecration. Governor LePage had
the opposite thing, that they are closing the campsites,
closing the ATV and snowmobile trails, closing the forest
roads.
So, is it too much--too many visitors, or too few visitors?
Too much visitation?
Ms. Clarke. The visitation in the Grand Staircase Monument,
we can document that there have been more problems, more
damage, artifacts we believe are being taken.
So, we think if your goal is to protect artifacts, and
Indian artifacts, more people are going to cause you more
problems and more degradation.
Mr. Beyer. Mr. Marshall, you talked a lot about the insect
infestation. How much impact has the gradual warming of climate
change impacted that--as an Oregon forester?
Mr. Marshall. The exact science around that is in debate
still, and it is developing. I mean this is a new topic, and we
are going to follow it through. Again, I believe forest
management has a place in the discussion. I think the overstock
stands are nature's way of bringing them back to a stocking
level that is in equilibrium with their actual capability--one
of the methods is the infestation of bugs.
Now, those things spread rapidly. Once they start, they are
really hard to get stopped, and they continue to eat up more of
the forest in the West Coast. Whether or not that is a specific
reaction from the overstock conditions or climate change, I
think we will see that prove out in science over the next
couple of decades.
Mr. Beyer. Yes. Every study I have seen shows that as the
temperatures continue to go up, the insects continue to move
north.
Mr. McClintock. Thank you.
Mr. Beyer. Thank you, and I yield back.
Mr. McClintock. Mr. LaMalfa.
Mr. LaMalfa. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am glad we can have
this hearing today. It is a long time coming on an issue that
has been controversial to this Committee.
We see that the vast majority of this has been affecting
the West, with these new Antiquities Act monument designations,
although Governor LePage makes very strong cases how negatively
it affects his state, as well, in trampling the views of the
people who actually live and work in those rural areas.
I think the whole concept with the monuments, which I would
not have nearly the problem with, is the size of the
designations. And size matters. So, if you have a particular
area within the scope that needs protecting, I think we can
find a lot of positive ground there. But indeed, many, many
thousands or millions of acres is very detrimental to the
locals.
So, a key element of this--with the consent of the governed
is when these things should happen. In my district, the
previous administration designated thousands of acres of
monument land in Siskiyou County, as was noted a while ago,
over the direct protest of the residents and local governments.
The county is so concerned with the impacts it sent a letter,
which, Mr. Chairman, I would like to submit for the record a
letter from the Siskiyou County Board of Supervisors.
Mr. McClintock. Without objection.
[The information follows:]
COUNTY OF SISKIYOU, CALIFORNIA,
Board of Supervisors,
Yreka, California
February 14, 2017
President Donald J. Trump
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
Subject: Expansion of the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument
Dear President Trump:
We write this letter to draw attention to the irresponsible and
potentially illegal expansion of the Cascade Siskiyou National Monument
(Monument), approved by President Barack Obama on January 12, 2017. The
Monument was originally established by Presidential Proclamation 7318
under President Bill Clinton, and encompassed approximately 66,000
acres within its boundaries in Southern Oregon. In October 2016, Oregon
Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley reached out to Secretary of the
Interior, Sally Jewell, proposing to expand the Monument by
approximately 65,000 acres, 10,000 of which are located in Siskiyou
County, California.
The expansion is likely to affect the natural resources, economy
and citizens of Siskiyou County, through the restrictions that are put
into place after Monuments are designated. In many instances roads
within Monument boundaries are no longer allowed for use and are not
maintained, timber harvest is prohibited, wildfire outbreak becomes
more prevalent as a result of non-management, public grazing lands are
eventually severely restricted, and private lands included in Monument
boundaries are turned over to federal agencies due to pressure to
include these lands in the Monuments management policies.
We raise three main issues concerning the legality and process for
expansion of the Monument, the first being the lack of public
engagement that took place prior to approval of the expansion. As part
of their process in reaching out to the Department of the Interior, and
the Department's subsequent involvement in the expansion, Oregon
Senators Wyden and Merkley held a public hearing in Ashland, Oregon on
October 14, 2016. There were no other attempts by the Senators, or the
Department of the Interior, to hold any other public meetings, and
specifically there were no hearings or meetings held in California. In
an attempt to garnish public input, the Siskiyou County Board of
Supervisors held their own meeting on November 17, 2016, and submitted
all written and verbal comments provided during that meeting to the
Department of the Interior for consideration. It seems extremely
unprofessional that there were no attempts by the proponents of the
expansion to hold public meetings in the state in which a portion of
the Monument would encompass, and appears to be an attempt to stifle
public engagement and input.
Second, the original Monument and the expansion were both
designated under the Antiquities Act through Presidential Proclamation
7318, which allows the President of the United States to approve
Monuments by signature. However, the intent of the Antiquities Act is
to protect archeological and Native American areas by giving the
President of the United States power to declare as Monuments ``historic
landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of
historic or scientific interest'' while at the same time limiting that
designation to the ``smallest area compatible with proper care and
management of the objects to be protected.'' Based on this direction,
it is our position that the broad designation of the Monument and the
expansion under the Antiquities Act is misuse of the Act itself, and
does not follow the spirit and intent of the Act.
Lastly, we believe that the Monument expansion is potentially
illegal as it does not meet Article 1, Section 10 of the United States
Constitution stating that ``No state shall, without the consent of
Congress . . . enter into any agreement with another state . . .'', and
Article IV, Section 3, Clause 2 which states that ``The Congress shall
have power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations
respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United
States . . .'' An example of a situation where Congress was needed to
approve such an action is Congress' approval of the Tahoe Regional
Planning Agency, which was required before engaging the States of
Nevada and California in mutual planning processes. The designation of
the Monument expansion triggers the need for the states of Oregon and
California, and state and federal agencies, to be formally engaged
together in management responsibilities for the Monument; however no
such approval through Congress was ever established.
We hope that as time allows you are able to have some time to look
into this issue. We look forward to the opportunity to work with you
and provide additional information on this matter.
Sincerely,
Michael N. Kobseff, Chair,
Board of Supervisors.
______
Mr. LaMalfa. OK, thank you. They are concerned about the
impacts of the designation on the increased wildfire risk,
decreased timber harvest, restriction on road maintenance,
limited access associated with the Monument, and noted that the
Obama administration held exactly zero public forums on the
issue in California.
The order by President Trump to review monument
designations will shed new light on the over 500 million acres
that the Administration previously unilaterally imposed Federal
control over. I think we will find a common theme that these
designations were made over the protests of those affected by
that.
And Siskiyou County points out that their designation, as
has been the theme today, should be the smallest area
compatible with proper care and management of the objects to be
protected. Based on this direction, their position in Siskiyou
County, the designation is a misuse of the Act, and does not
follow the spirit and intent of the Act. So, we have a giant
problem here.
So, from the panelists, just quickly, we see that--well, to
the Governor there, the Katahdin designation was touted as
protecting hunting and angling access, yet hunting is only
allowed on approximately 40 percent of the impacted land. Does
that jive with you, Governor?
Governor LePage. Yes.
Mr. LaMalfa. Yes, 40 percent--so promise semi, mostly
broken. California, the Castle Mountain Monument was included
in a designation that claimed to protect sporting access, yet
the Park Service immediately closed the area to hunting.
So, for each of our panelists--and I have to go quickly
here, so a yes or no would be appreciated--would you support
legislation asserting that hunting and angling is allowed at
every monument, if it was allowed prior to the designation,
please?
Governor LePage. Absolutely.
Mr. LaMalfa. Thank you.
Ma'am?
Ms. Clarke. Absolutely, because hunting and angling is a
big economic force, as well as a recreational activity.
Mr. LaMalfa. OK.
Mr. St. Clair. Also, yes.
Mr. LaMalfa. OK.
Mr. Marshall. Yes, absolutely.
Mr. LaMalfa. OK, thank you. What continues to mystify me on
this is that, if you have the great lands of Maine or other
areas of the United States that people are attracted to, how is
a monument designation being listed in a book going to somehow
have people that would not normally have been attracted to
those lands say, ``Oh, I am going to go there now because it is
now designated a monument,'' where in many cases they are
actually cut off to access, less roads, roads are taken out,
all these things that make it harder for people to use them.
So, with that, Mr. Chairman, I would like to yield my time
back to the Chairman, Chairman Bishop. I will hold there, I
will yield back.
Mr. McClintock. The gentleman yields back?
Mr. LaMalfa. I yield back.
Mr. McClintock. As the Chairman said, we have a request for
a second round of questions, which is an indication of the
Committee's interest in this subject and the quality of our
witnesses. I will begin the second round with Governor LePage.
When residents in Maine expressed concerns that the
Administration would listen to Ms. Quimby over the voices of
local people, due to her status on the National Park Foundation
Board, the National Park Service Director Jonathan Jarvis said
the following, ``So, let me explain who the National Park
Foundation is. They are wealthy people. We like wealthy people,
because they give us their money, and they know other wealthy
people who also give us their money.'' Do you believe the
Administration paid as much attention to local residents in
rural Maine as they did to donors with deep pockets?
Governor LePage. No, not at all. In fact, I think that they
ignored the will of the governed.
Mr. McClintock. And that will was expressed in what way?
Governor LePage. Expressed--Mr. St. Clair said that there
was a small vote in the referendum. Well, as people show up to
vote, they express their feelings. It is no different than a
poll. In fact, I would argue that the people that vote is a
much larger poll than those----
Mr. McClintock. Well, according to his testimony, he was
unable to find Democrats or Republicans holding Federal office
in Maine who were willing to take this bill to the Congress.
Governor LePage. That is correct.
Mr. McClintock. Does that reflect the public will?
Governor LePage. That is correct. They ignored the will of
the governed. And this is what I find the most disconcerting
about what is happening in these Federal lands, and this whole
process.
The people of Maine would welcome this Katahdin Woods if
they would have worked with the Baxter State Park and made it
work together, because it is a crown jewel. One of the biggest
concerns that we have----
Mr. McClintock. Which, I might add, is why Congress, and
not the President, is given the authority under the
Constitution to manage the Federal lands.
Governor LePage. That is correct. And our biggest fear--and
I have expressed it once before, maybe several times today--is
the lack of management that the Federal Government provides on
their lands. And it borders onto Baxter State Park, which is
properly managed. And as I said earlier, Acadia is one of my
biggest fears, because of the deferred maintenance that is
going on to that national park.
Mr. McClintock. We have already established that the jobs
that are being destroyed are high-paying, full-time jobs, and
the tourism jobs that are being promised are, at best, part-
time seasonal jobs. Of course, you have a background in the
lumber and paper companies before your time as governor. Could
you talk about the types of jobs in the forest products
industry that we are losing because of these actions?
Governor LePage. Oh, yes. We are losing paper makers. I
mean these are career jobs. These are people that raise
families, generation after generation in this industry. And the
tourism jobs--which I don't make light of them, they are very,
very important--but, as you said, they are working in
restaurants and hotels, and they are not a job, they are more
of an entry-level job, rather than a career development----
Mr. McClintock. I might add that is precisely the
experience we have had in the Sierra Nevada. These restrictions
have not only killed our forests, they have destroyed the
economies of our local communities that used to thrive on the
harvest of surplus timber.
As one forester told me, all that excess timber comes out
one way or another. It is either carried out or it burns out.
When we carried it out, we had healthy forests and a healthy
economy. And since these restrictions have been imposed, we
have seen dying forests and a languishing economy.
Mr. Marshall, Franklin Roosevelt's Solicitor General, when
he wanted to designate O&C lands as a national monument, his
Solicitor General said, ``You can't do that. That is clearly
against the Constitution,'' and the President backed off.
President Obama has done the same thing with Cascade-Siskiyou,
40,000 acres of O&C lands, but in defiance of that Solicitor
General's approval.
Can you explain the ways the President's designation
contradicts the congressionally mandated use of this land?
Mr. Marshall. I am no particular expert on the exact
limitations that it imposes, but that the designation does
forbid future forest production.
Mr. McClintock. Right. One more question maybe for the
future edification of Mr. Beyer. He says that it is global
warming that is causing the bark beetle infestation, also
acknowledging it has been going on for 11,000 years.
Question--how did trees normally defend themselves against
a bark beetle?
Mr. Marshall. They normally defend themselves by using
their pitch in their systems to actually pitch out the bugs----
Mr. McClintock. They can do that as long as they are
healthy, as long as they are not----
Mr. Marshall. As long as they are healthy and have a
satisfactory amount of water. The overstock conditions in the--
--
Mr. McClintock. But if the forest is desperately
overcrowded, trees do not have enough room to grow and thrive.
They are fighting for their lives against other trees. In that
stressed condition, do they lose their defense against the bark
beetle?
Mr. Marshall. They do, and they are suffering for water to
continue.
Mr. McClintock. Great, thank you.
Ms. Hanabusa.
Ms. Hanabusa. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I do want to thank
all of you for being here today. I went into the questions the
last time failing to do that.
Mr. Marshall, what is the relationship between Murphy
Company and Murphy Timber Investment, LLC?
Mr. Marshall. Murphy Company is our manufacturing
operation, where all our manufacturing assets are held. Murphy
Timber Investments is where we started a new business to
actually start acquiring lands and managing them for the
production of forest products.
Ms. Hanabusa. So, that is the one that you mentioned that
you have 50,000 acres.
Mr. Marshall. Correct, it is under Murphy Timber
Investments.
Ms. Hanabusa. On February 17 of this year, both of those
entities sued Donald Trump, President Trump, in the U.S.
District Court in the District of Oregon. I assume it is about
this designation somehow. Can you explain what it is that is
the--what we call the prayer, the relief that both of those
companies are seeking?
Mr. Marshall. Again, we are 100 percent dependent on the
yield of the forest in the area where we operate. The yield of
the forest from the excessive litigation and the lack of
management on the Federal lands has reduced the available wood
products for our facilities. That is why we made the leap to
invest in the timberlands, so the claim is twofold.
We see a reduction in the available lands to produce forest
products from the Federal lands, plus they incorporated the
lands we have. We are a multi-generational company, we look out
into the long term. The prior ownerships within the first
monument yielded a very difficult situation to continue to
manage those lands. And they were actually eventually
transferred and put back into the Monument.
So, the reduction of the landscape is difficult. We do not
want to see the landscape shrink. We want to see it be
entirely, as much possible, utilized for forest conservation.
There are certain areas that need to be protected, and there
are certainly areas that need our help for forest restoration.
And that is where we think there needs to be a broader
discussion.
Ms. Hanabusa. So, the companies have taken it to Federal
court--that is the bottom line--to get this determination.
Mr. Marshall. We have, correct.
Ms. Hanabusa. Thank you.
Governor LePage, I am kind of confused and I would just
like to know from you straight on--if the Elliotsville
Plantation, the Quimby family, had, in essence, given this land
to the state like Governor Baxter did, you would have no
objection to that. Am I understanding you correctly?
Governor LePage. No, we would have negotiated some
positions. If they would have given the land and it could be
operated as Baxter State Park, with the same conditions and
managing the forest--in other words, the working forest--we
would have been far more receptive to it.
Ms. Hanabusa. So, you would not just want land. It is not
that you would think that it is in Maine's interest to have a
land like--and I understand that Governor Baxter said it is to
be preserved, basically, as a wildlife kind of refuge.
Governor LePage. Right. It is a working forest.
Ms. Hanabusa. So, that is what I find confusing, that you
would not want the lands from the Elliotsville Plantation. You
want it under certain conditions? Is that what you are saying?
Governor LePage. What I am saying--it abuts Baxter State
Park; and as a Federal monument, we know that Federal lands are
not managed to the same level as we do the Baxter State Park.
Ms. Hanabusa. That is what I am saying, Governor, in all
due respect, is that if you could have the lands, you would be
fine with it. But because it is Federal lands, you don't want
it.
Governor LePage. No. What I am saying is if it is land that
is properly managed, it is valuable. If it is land that is just
going to be put into preservation, it is dangerous.
Ms. Hanabusa. So, you are saying that because it is a
monument, and because of Acadia, you are assuming that it will
not be managed properly. Is that correct?
Governor LePage. Well, I am just--no, nationally.
Nationally, the deferred spending on our parks and our
monuments is in the billions of dollars. And that is what I
fear.
Ms. Hanabusa. But you do know that there is an endowment
that comes with----
Governor LePage. Forty million dollars for a forest is--
just Acadia alone is already deferred of $60 million.
Ms. Hanabusa. How large is Acadia?
Governor LePage. I don't know, I am really not certain.
Ms. Hanabusa. So, it is like you are saying that all that
they are saying is we are going to give $40 million, which is
more than what the Federal Government--you know, the Federal
Government is also giving money to the management of these
lands, so that is an additional $40 million. And you are still
not convinced that it will be managed properly.
Governor LePage. That is correct, ma'am.
Ms. Hanabusa. All right. Thank you. I yield back.
Mr. McClintock. The Chair is informed Acadia is 49,000
acres.
Mr. Bishop, Chairman Bishop, to close.
Mr. Bishop. Thank you again. As a lead-in to that, it is
the issue of management of these areas, because that is what I
would like to go to--Ms. Clarke, I would like to talk to you
about the management of these areas again.
In 2015, Garfield County declared a state of emergency, due
in large part to the Federal land management practices. And it
indicates the problems with the Antiquities Act. Instead of
working out what the practices will be ahead of time, you
declare a monument and then you try and go back and figure it
out later on. And no one is actually ever sure what those
managements will be. And I think, Governor, that is what you
were saying, that you cannot guarantee what those future
managements will be.
Governor LePage. That is correct.
Mr. Bishop. I want Ms. Clarke to address Bears Ears again,
because there has been another false narrative out there that
this is the first time that Native Americans will be in a co-
management situation on a national monument.
You were the BLM Director. You understand that instead of
actually giving them the ability of making decisions, they have
a planning advisory committee----
Ms. Clarke. Yes.
Mr. Bishop [continuing]. That is there. Do planning
advisory committees actually have the ability of making final
decisions, or do you even think it has the propensity of making
final decisions?
Ms. Clarke. No, absolutely not. They can advise, and then
the Federal Government makes the decisions.
Mr. Bishop. So, in the decision, in the monument
declaration that President Obama did, even though he said they
were giving them management, there is no real management.
Ms. Clarke. That is right.
Mr. Bishop. And I understand that, because he has no power
to do that. Only Congress can do that, and that is one of the
reasons why we would like this thing to be a do-over, so that
we can actually establish it at the right size, with the
management practices stated up front, and truly give co-
management authority to the Native Americans who live in San
Juan County to manage their area. And it hasn't happened,
doesn't happen, can't happen, and the statements that it did
happen are just flat-out inaccurate.
So, basically, who do you think actually benefits the most
from these designations, the local community? Or is it the
tourists who go there? Or the special interest groups that
advocate for it?
Ms. Clarke. I think it is the special interest groups. They
certainly are the ones that have promoted this. We were aware
of people that were bussed in from Texas to some of the
hearings, because they were offered 2 nights at a nice motel,
and meals along the way. And they said, ``Boy, that is a
deal,'' and they didn't know why they were there.
Mr. Bishop. My kid was down there. He met them, as well.
They were promised a free road trip to Utah, they took it, they
had no idea what Bears Ears was.
Ms. Clarke. That is right.
Mr. Bishop. Neither did the President.
All right, so let's talk about this. Three months after the
designation, in March of this year, one of the environmental
groups sued to block an ATV trail that the county and BLM had
been working on for a decade, and the BLM had already
previously approved. Do these designations then solve these
problems forever, or do they exacerbate them?
Ms. Clarke. They exacerbate them, absolutely. My experience
is as soon as you designate an area as a monument, or an ACEC,
or something special, it is a target; and every multiple use in
that area will be challenged. And ultimately, they die away
because of those pressures that come from the agency, as well
as from environmental groups.
Mr. Bishop. All right. Governor, I am looking at this as
spur of the moment here. I am sorry. Give me your indication--
we talked about management here, we talked about what the
tourism will be. Can you give me just your implication of what
you think tourism jobs will mean in the National Monument--7,
10 months from now?
Governor LePage. I really don't know that they are going to
be very many. We have----
Mr. Bishop. You said people visit the coast. To go to
Baxter Park, you have to want to go there. To go to this new
monument----
Governor LePage. Yes, it is a destination.
Mr. Bishop [continuing]. It is an end destination. You
don't go through that to get to someplace else.
Governor LePage. No.
Mr. Bishop. So, you have to be wanting to be there the
first time.
Governor LePage. That is correct.
Mr. Bishop. I think it is what Mr. Westerman, who is a
trained forester, was saying about that area in which he was
skeptical, as far as its viability.
Mr. St. Clair, I have one last thing to tell you. You said
in the Bangor News last week that you thought restrictions in
the deed prohibit the transfer of this land. The Congressional
Research Service looked at the claim and the deed, and they
simply concluded the deeds neither restrict the grantee's use
of the land to a national monument, nor otherwise expressly
mention national monument status. Thus, nothing in the deeds
themselves address or precludes subsequent changes in the
status of the land as a national monument.
They further concluded that nothing in the deeds prohibited
administrative transfers of land to other agencies or preclude
Congress from transferring management or ownership to the land
anywhere else. I hope you would modify those statements that
were inappropriately said to the Bangor Daily News, or we could
go with that.
I have 2 seconds left. Thank you for holding this hearing.
Thank you guys for coming here and traveling to Washington to
do it. I appreciate it very much.
Mr. McClintock. Great. Thank you very much. That concludes
our questions. I really want to thank our witnesses for being
here today. I think you brought this issue into very sharp
focus for us, and I appreciate your traveling all the way to do
so.
The members of the Committee may have additional questions
for the witnesses. We would ask that you respond to those in
writing. Under Committee Rule 3(o), members of the Committee
have to submit witness questions within 3 business days
following the hearing. The hearing record will be held open for
10 business days for these responses.
If there is no further business, without objection, the
Subcommittee stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:20 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
[ADDITIONAL MATERIALS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD]
STATE OF UTAH
Office of the Governor
Salt Lake City, Utah
May 1, 2017
Hon. Rob Bishop, Chairman,
Hon. Raul M. Grijalva, Ranking Member,
House Committee on Natural Resources,
1324 Longworth House Office Building,
Washington, DC 20515.
Dear Chairman Bishop and Congressman Grijalva:
Utah is home to five national parks, six national forests, one
national historic site, two national recreation areas, 43 state parks,
and eight national monuments. Roughly 37 million out of 54 total
million acres (two-thirds) of the entire state land mass of Utah is
public land.
Utahns are proud of our public lands. We love their grandeur and
beauty. We love the opportunities they create for solitude and
recreation. While the vast majority of these lands need to remain open
to the public for access, use, and enjoyment, we also recognize there
are many areas that must be preserved and protected.
Federal land policy attempts to find the appropriate balance
between multiple use and preservation. In many cases, federal law has
found that balance. Unfortunately, some laws have grown outdated or
have been abused over time and strayed far from their intended use. The
1906 Antiquities Act is one of those laws.
Utah has a mixed relationship with the Antiquities Act. Over the
course of its 110-year history the state has benefited from assertive,
yet measured, presidential action using this tool. On the other hand,
we have also felt a deep and lasting burden when the Act has been
misused.
Four of Utah's five magnificent national parks began as national
monuments. Utah is delighted today to be the proud host of these
national parks, but the associated monument designations were small,
appropriate and fell within the clear scope and intent of the law.
These designations encompassed the smallest area necessary to protect
the objects in question--sometimes a few thousand acres. Additionally,
they enjoyed the support of Utah's leaders and the local communities
impacted by the designations.
Utah, however, has also experienced the downside of the Antiquities
Act as it began to be misused and abused for political purposes. The
Grand Staircase Escalante designation and the recent controversial
Bears Ears designation are key examples of this. The 1996 designation
of the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument continues to be a
source of mistrust, frustration, and acrimony toward the federal
government among local residents. I'm afraid the way that local
citizens in San Juan County were ignored in the lead up to the
designation of the Bears Ears is setting us on the same path to
disappointment and dissension.
In the early days of the Antiquities Act, the average size of
national monuments was in the hundreds of acres per monument. Now it's
not uncommon for a monument to exceed a million or more acres. It is
hard to look at the massive landscape, million plus acre designations
that have occurred over the past several decades and see how those
actions square with the clear language and intent of the law.
Based on our experience in Utah, we believe the creation of
million-acre plus national monuments to protect thousands of
archeological sites is counter-productive. It is doing the wrong thing
for the right reason. The Antiquities Act requires the monuments be
``confined to the smallest area compatible with the proper care and
management of the objects to be protected.'' Neither the Grand
Staircase nor the Bears Ears meets this test.
The intent behind the Antiquities Act is laudable and a great deal
of good has been accomplished nationwide through its use throughout the
last 110 years. But there should be limits upon the nature of the
objects that may be protected, and the size of monuments should be
limited to that which allows necessary protections for those objects.
Any perceived benefits from the designation of huge ``landscape''
monuments need to be weighed against the impacts suffered by those who
have traditionally used the lands. National monuments should be
employed judiciously so as not to do unwarranted damage to lives and
cultures, past, present, or future. The landscape monuments at the
Grand Staircase and the Bears Ears as presently configured violate this
mandate.
Thank you again for addressing this important issue. Utah stands
ready to work with Congress and the administration to ensure that the
Antiquities Act is utilized judiciously, appropriately, and according
to its intended scope and use.
Sincerely,
Gary R. Herbert,
Governor.
______
Official Testimony--Hunter Moore, Natural Resources Policy Advisor to
Arizona Governor Doug Ducey
Chairman Bishop, and honorable members of the Committee, for the
record, my name is Hunter Moore, and I submit this testimony to you in
my official capacity as Natural Resources Policy Advisor to Governor
Ducey of Arizona.
I want to express gratitude for the opportunity to provide this
committee with testimony related to Arizona's federal nexus and
concerns with the Antiquities Act of 1906 (Act), and the challenges to
state management of Arizona lands under various federal land ownerships
which account for approximately 70 percent of the total 73 million
acres of Arizona's land base.
Last year (2016), Congressman Paul Gosar of Arizona, hosted a field
hearing related to a proposed monument designation of 1.7 million acres
of land adjacent to the existing Grand Canyon National Park and Grand
Canyon Parashant National Monument, both created by Presidential
Proclamations and together total approximately 2 million acres.
Several industries, individuals and state and local agencies,
including the Arizona Game and Fish Commission, and the State Land
Department, provided testimony for the record regarding potential harm
from such a large-scale designation, and generally expressed ardent
opposition to imposing land use restrictions that are inconsistent with
the intent of the Act and defy its explicit authorities for small,
historic set-asides. The Antiquities Act was passed in 1906 to protect
historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and other
objects of historic or scientific interest. The Act clearly says a
designation shall constitute ``the smallest amount of land possible to
protect the artifact.''
Arizona Senators McCain and Flake also addressed the issue of a
proposed monument in correspondence to the former President--expressing
concerns that a ``unilateral'' designation would negatively impact
forest and watershed management. Moreover, they stated that imposing
land use restrictions pursuant to the Act in designating the Grand
Canyon Watershed National Monument would have extended ``far afield
from the intent of the Antiquities Act.''
We concur with the concerns expressed by so many, and now must
actively pursue remedies for the aggrieved.
Federal special land use designations, in general, whether created
by executive order, congressional legislation or an administrative
action, are eroding the ability of states' and industries to capture
revenues from longstanding investments that have been contributed to
those federal lands and resources. Further, both consumptive and non-
consumptive industries plan for and invest a great deal of resources
into federal lands; which helps offsetting federal costs to manage
them. Whether those generated revenues come as a result of mitigation
costs from extractive industries, conservation projects by hunters, or
land treatment costs from ranchers, the benefits are realizable to all
that enjoy Arizona's public land, and reduce federal appropriations for
active land management. Creating spurious, unilateral restrictions,
such as through the Act, essentially cuts-off that investment and the
active management of each respective landscape.
Arizona relies heavily on its ability to balance conservation and
multiple-use principles to provide its citizens and visitors with
economic opportunity, jobs, recreation, and an overall quality of life.
Restrictive land prescriptions induce unfair shifts to land planning
priorities and prior/expended private investments. These shifts are not
only fiscally harmful to investors and businesses; they hinder the
effective management of the natural resources that they were intending
to protect. New management plans must be drafted at the federal agency
level, along with their layers of bureaucracy that result in project
delays, increased costs, increased man hours and legal challenges that
slowly choke-out the effectiveness and general meaning of the multiple
use doctrine. Despite claims that designations won't impact current
uses, the clear intention is to dismantle the multi-use doctrine, which
has been the centerpiece of public lands management for generations.
This system afforded our nation the best recreational, wildlife and
local economic opportunity on public lands in the history of the world.
Those who want to reduce access, reduce recreation, reduce historical
rural economic activity know that these designations are the quickest
route to achieve their objectives.
There are many examples of negative impacts on the State's ability
to manage wildlife. Upon designation of the Sonoran Desert National
Monument in 2001, the Bureau of Land Management was charged with
developing an area management plan. The development of this plan took
place over the period of 11 years during which time the Arizona Game
and Fish Department experienced detrimental delays and prohibitions for
critical wildlife management actions. A stark illustration of the
specific impact this protracted process has had on the Department's
mission can be seen in the Maricopa Mountains. These mountains,
included in Sonoran Desert National Monument, were home to at least 103
Bighorn sheep, as counted by department biologists in 1999. There were
fewer than 35 counted in 2015. The Department experienced detrimental
delays, outright prohibitions of necessary wildlife management actions
and a crippling lack of access to the area stemming from designation of
the monument. With no management plan to address these concerns, the
departments found it extremely difficult to provide the sustainable
water sources these sheep require.
Recreational shooting, a traditional activity practiced by citizens
since territorial days, is also being restricted in the Sonoran Desert
National Monument, as well as other national monuments. This will leave
Arizona's hunters with fewer places to safely and responsibly exercise
their Second Amendment Rights.
Arizona currently has 18 monuments, the most in the nation. 77% of
Arizona's lands have restrictions relate to public access and
recreational use. The State's ability to conserve, manage and protect
Arizona's wildlife resources is negatively impacted on a total of 10.3
million acres. Land tenure in Arizona is one of the most complex in the
nation, with federal, state and private lands intermingled, or checker-
boarded. This complexity results in challenges for all land managers,
and those challenges are aggravated with restrictive federal
regulations. The State has 9.2 million acres of State Trust land, with
nearly 350,000 acres of surface and subsurface estates trapped within
special federal land use designations. Those trapped, encumbered acres
were given to Arizona, by Congress, at statehood to hold in Trust for
the benefit of 13 public beneficiaries. The Federal Government has
failed to provide the trust with compensation for lost revenues because
of their actions that result in forced restrictions and cutoff access.
Arizona's current Administration is looking to advance a common-
sense approach to managing government purview, specifically reducing or
eliminating regulations and government actions that inhibit economic
prosperity, and waste finite resources. The Antiquities Act of 1906 is
not an effective or appropriate tool for managing resources, and it is
as antiquated as the historic artifacts it was and is intended to
protect. The open and scenic landscapes of Arizona require active,
multiple-use management from users, conservationists and industry that
spend their dollar and time in establishing compatible plans that
facilitate treatment for range, habitat and conservation goals.
Government, especially local and state government, should assist with
creating those plans, and serve as a resource to stakeholders providing
them expertise and other forms of support.
Designations created by the Act have not advanced collaboration
amongst consumptive and non-consumptive users; and they have not
resulted in sufficient land health and economic sustainability.
We ask Congress to amend the Act to reflect its intended
application; revisions should provide more explicit provisional
authorities including: a more robust process for designations, more
clearly defined application or limitation on amount of designations,
and detailed consultation with respective states and stakeholders.
Creating an industry and tourism-friendly environment is what all
levels of government should be prioritizing--and moreover, government
should be focused on opportunities, such as this hearing, to facilitate
an open dialogue toward improving that environment through revising
laws and administrative rules that not only inhibit future potential of
private industries and citizens to achieve growth, but also harm
everyone by designating lands where resources and monies have been
invested and planned. We, as public servants, have a responsibility to
serve our citizens through responsible, process-driven laws and
programs that are responsive to their needs to earn a living, feed
families and enjoy beautiful landscapes for generations.
Unfortunately, the Antiquities Act is not balanced, nor fair and it
enacts restrictions that are fiscally and ethically harmful. It is
incumbent upon us, as public servants, to correct this 100-year-old
historic course and adapt our governance to 21st century goals.
______
[LIST OF DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD RETAINED IN THE COMMITTEE'S
OFFICIAL FILES]
Rep. McClintock Submissions
-- Letter to Chairman Tom McClintock and Ranking Member
Hanabusa from the American Motorcyclist
Association.
-- Letter to Chairman Tom McClintock and the Members of
the Subcommittee on Federal Lands from Edward
Madden and the Arizona Fish and Game Department.
-- Testimony from the Association of O&C Counties
regarding the Antiquities Act.
-- Letter to Chairman Tom McClintock and the Subcommittee
on Federal Lands from the Association of Oregon
Counties.
-- Letter to Chairman Bishop and Ranking Member Grijalva
from the Douglas County-Carson City Farm Bureau.
-- Letter to Chairman Bishop and Ranking Member Grijalva
from Garfield County Commissioners.
-- Letter to Chairman Bishop and Ranking Member Grijalva
from Daniel Chadwick on behalf of the Idaho
Association of Counties.
-- Letter to Chairman Bishop from the Jackson County,
Oregon Board of Commissioners.
-- Letter to House Committee on Natural Resources,
Subcommittee on Federal Lands from the Klamath
County Commissioners.
-- Letter to Chairman Tom McClintock from John Hinz,
President of KTM Group.
-- Letter to Chairman Bishop and Ranking Member Grijalva
from the National Association of Counties and
Western Interstate Region.
-- Letter to Chairman Bishop and Ranking Member Grijalva
from Tyler Massey and Steve Kopelman on behalf of
the New Mexico Association of Counties.
-- Letter to Chairman Bishop and Ranking Member Grijalva
from Jeffery Fontaine on behalf of the Nevada
Association of Counties.
-- Letter to House Committee on Natural Resources from
John O'Keefe on behalf of the Oregon Cattlemen's
Association.
-- Letter to Chairman Bishop and Ranking Member Grijalva
from Barry Bushue on behalf of the Oregon Farm
Bureau.
-- Letter to Secretary Zinke from former BLM director
Edward Shepard.
-- Letter to Chairman Bishop and Ranking Member Grijalva
from Boyd Matheson and Matthew Anderson of the
Sutherland Institute.
-- Letter to Chairman Bishop and Ranking Member Grijalva
from the Utah Association of Counties.
-- Letter to Chairman Bishop and Ranking Member Grijalva
from Director Curtis Kennedy of the Utah Snowmobile
Association.
-- Letter to Chairman McClintock and Ranking Member
Hanabusa from Rob Hendry of the Wyoming County
Commissioners Association.
Rep. Hanabusa Submissions
-- Testimony from the Appalachian Mountain Club in support
of Katahdin Woods and Waters.
-- Testimony from Michael C. Blumm, Professor at Lewis and
Clark Law School.
-- Book containing expressions of support by various
parties for the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument.
-- Letter to Senator Angus King from Jon Ellis, owner of
Ellis Family Market.
-- Letter to Chairman Bishop, Ranking Member Grijalva, and
the Members of the Committee on Natural Resources
from Gail Fanjoy on behalf of the Katahdin Area
Chamber of Commerce.
-- Letter to Senators Collins and King, Congressmen
Poliquin and Pingree from Katahdin Region
Businesses in support of Katahdin Woods and Waters
National Monument.
-- Book in support of Mojave Trails, Sand to Snow, and
Castle Mountains National Monument.
-- Letter from Kristin Brengel on behalf of the National
Parks Conservation Association.
-- Support Book for Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National
Monument.
-- Letter to Senators Udall and Heinrich, Congressmen
Lujan, Lujan Grisham, and Pearce from Santa Fe
Green Chamber of Congress, Partnership for
Responsible Business, and Las Cruces Green Chamber
of Congress.
-- Support book for protecting the Rio Grande Del Norte
National Monument.
-- Testimony from the Soda Mountain Wilderness Council in
defense of the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument.
-- Letter to Senator Angus King from Jon Ellis, James
Talbott, and Steve Richardson.
Rep. Grijalva Submission
-- Letter to President Trump, Secretaries Zinke and Ross
from 450 organizations in support of the Monument
designation.
Rep. Brown Submission
-- Testimony from Stephanie Meeks on behalf of the
National Trust for Historic Preservation.
Rep. Gosar Submission
-- Report from the Grand Canyon Trust in favor of the
Bears Ears National Monument.
Rep. Pearce Submission
-- Support book in favor of modifying the boundaries of
the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument.
Rep. Tsongas Submission
-- Statement for the record with testimony from the
Appalachian Mountain Club.
[all]